


the familiarity between us has come face to face

by howoo



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Attempt at Humor, Blind Character, Brief Mentions Of Sidepairings, Disabled Character, Fluff, I just thought of a concept and went ham with it, M/M, Side Chanlix, Side Seungin, idiots to lovers, it helps if you imagine Jisung is wearing heelys in all of his scenes, side minsung, this has no plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:14:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23309728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howoo/pseuds/howoo
Summary: "Oh, you're shorter than I imagined," Hyunjin lets escape, while feeling the soft fabric of Changbin's hoodie."Is offending people you just met your thing? I can just leave you here, you know?" Changbin grumbles, but there's no real bite to it."Nooo," Hyunjin pouts and grabs Changbin's shoulder harder. Oh, it's thicker than he first imagined. "Please, you wouldn't abandon a poor blind boy, would you?""Keep testing me, brat," he huffs.Or,Hyunjin gets lost in an unfamiliar building and it's Changbin who helps him find the way.
Relationships: Hwang Hyunjin/Seo Changbin
Comments: 41
Kudos: 339
Collections: changjin_flowercaffe





	the familiarity between us has come face to face

**Author's Note:**

> ok, so, first of all, Happy 2nd Anniversary to Stray Kids! i haven't been part of this fandom for long, but i love this boys more than a lot of things in my life, so there's that.
> 
> second of all, here goes a disclaimer: i am not blind nor visually impaired. i tried to do as much research as i could so i could be as accurate as possible (to the point where my targeted ads are products and services for blind people, i kid you not)
> 
> i hope this fic serves as a good distraction for what's going on in the world right now. it wasn't my intention to release it on their anniversary, but i just happened to finish it in time, so here it is
> 
> not 100% happy with it, but since i finished it, might as well publish it
> 
> one last thing: today is also my birthday, so if you could spare a second and stroke my ego in the comments, i'd really appreciate it

Feeling disoriented is a fairly common aspect of Hyunjin’s life, but at this point, he grew used to it. Kind of. He knows how many steps it takes from one lecture hall from another and he knows by the sound of the water fountain that he’s close to the main building, so when Seungmin or any of his other friends aren’t there to guide him, he can walk around campus just fine.

This week, however, he was told that the studios where he does his dance practices were being renovated, so all dance major students were relocated to other buildings until construction work was over. He assured Seungmin that he could get to the right building safely and the girl who guided him to where he is now assured him that it was the right place, but things got complicated once he got into the elevator. 

The building was located on the older side of campus and he could tell how ancient it was by the way the elevator doors creaked close and how there were no braille characters written on the buttons. Hyunjin felt around the panel, counting the buttons and pressing what he hoped was the right one for the fourth floor, but once he got out of it, he didn’t hear the familiar sound of shoes squeaking against the floor or someone counting the beats of a song. He was greeted by silence instead, except for the sound of his own shoes and his cane hitting the floor.

It feels like a movie, like he’s walking through a dark cavern, just waiting for a monster to emerge from somewhere. He can tell the lights are off by the way it’s all dark and by the lack of buzzing that comes from the lamps. In the back of his mind, he knows it’d be better to just go back to the elevator and try his luck until he finds the right floor, or until someone rides it with him and then he can ask for directions, but his feet decide to move forward anyway. 

There’s a slight vibration in the air, as if a song with a heavy bass line is being played somewhere. Hyunjin follows it in the hopes of finding someone and at each step he takes, the sound becomes clearer and clearer.

It’s a song he’s never heard before, and it’s not surprising, since he is, in fact, in the music production department’s building. It sounds a bit familiar, like something he heard his friends practice to before. Something with a hip-hop vibe that Minho would love to make a choreography for. 

Hyunjin stands in front of a door, where the music clearly comes from. It’s also the only light source he’s seen on this entire floor, but he’s not sure if he should knock or not. 

While he’s still debating what should be his next move, he hears the click of a doorknob being turned and suddenly, he’s being bombarded by the music that was being barely contained by the soundproof barriers of the studio. Hyunjin is startled by the sudden noise and drops his cane on the ground, while he also forgets how to breathe for a second. He instinctively covers his ears and crouches down, overwhelmed. He can hear someone yelling too, but he can’t tell what they’re saying.

And just as suddenly as the music knocked the air out of his lungs, it also stopped. Hyunjin feels the gentle touch of a warm hand on his wrist that helps him stand back up. 

“Hey, are you okay?” A warm voice asks, full of worry. Its owner lets go of his wrist and the next thing he knows, he’s giving his cane back to him. “Sorry for startling you like that, I thought you were someone else. Is everything alright?”

“Um, uh, yeah,” Hyunjin clutches the handle of his cane with all his strength. “I, uh, I’m kinda lost? I’m supposed to go to room 401B on the fourth floor, but the elevator here doesn’t have braille on the buttons, so I might’ve pressed the wrong button or something.”

“Who is it, hyung?” A second voice asks and he sees a second shadow forming behind the first one. It sounds lower than the first, a bit nasally and ragged around the edges.

“I’m Hyunjin,” he says, more confident this time, “my dance classes have been relocated to this building because the one we normally use is under renovation and I think I might be on the wrong floor. Sorry, I can't see much," he gestures with his cane, "could you please help me get to the right room?"

He wouldn't have done that before, when he still thought he could walk around without a cane and he was too prideful to ask people to read the bus signs for him, but now he knows better and that's useless to bump on everything that's on his way when he's the only one getting hurt.

"Oh, I heard about that!" The first voice says snapping his finger. Hyunjin likes how he sounds, he seems to be a nice person to be around. "Yeah, you're definitely on the wrong floor. I'm Chan, by the way."

"Nice to meet you," Hyunjin extends his right hand and it's enveloped in a strong grip, large palm and long fingers. Really, really warm. Hyunjin definitely likes this guy.

"And this is Changbin."

"Hi," the second voice, Changbin, says shyly and Hyunjin likes the way it rings in his ears. 

Changbin's hand is thicker than Chan's and his grip is weaker too. His palms feel callused and clammy, and it doesn't really match his voice.

"What year are you in, Hyunjin?" Chan asks.

"Oh, I'm a freshman. I guess that's why I'm still not familiar with things around here."

"Oh, don't worry, I'm in my fourth year and there are still parts of campus I don't know about. Anyway, Binnie here will take you to where you're supposed to be, because I have to finish editing this track. Right, Bin?" 

Hyunjin hears a slap and then a whine, supposedly from Changbin. A few more seconds of silence and then he hears a weak, "yeah, sure" from Changbin.

"Thank you so much, Chan-sunbae! And you too, Changbin… sunbae? I'm sorry, it's hard to tell, you sound older, but you called Chan-sunbae hyung, so I'm guessing you're younger than him?"

"Ya! I'm twenty, you brat!" Changbin is loud when he's angry and Hyunjin likes this version much better.

He hears Chan laugh and it's a very comforting sound. Warm too.

"You can just call me hyung," Chan says, still chuckling a bit, "it feels awkward when people call me 'sunbae.'"

"Ok, thank you very much anyway," Hyunjin bows down. "Thank you, really."

He feels Chan's warm hand on his shoulders beckoning him to straighten up. 

"Don't need to be so formal, this is what we're here for," Chan gives him a reassuring squeeze, "if you need help again and you still remember how to get here, this is where we're usually at. We'll be happy to help you anytime."

"Ok," Hyunjin exhales.

"So, I have to get back to work. You kids have fun!", and then he hears the sound of the door being closed.

It takes a few seconds of silence until Hyunjin sees the bright glare of a flashlight and winces away.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to point it at your face. I just need it to walk around here," Changbin says, immediately pointing his phone's flashlight elsewhere.

"Why is everything so dark around here anyway?"

"This whole building is a pain in the ass, and it's not worth lighting up the whole floor when we're basically the only ones who use it."

"Oh, that makes sense."

Changbin clears his throat awkwardly, "so, how do we do this?"

"I put my hand on your shoulder and we walk together," Hyunjin extends his left hand forward.

"Okay… right," Changbin then grabs Hyunjin's hand and puts it on his shoulder.

"Oh, you're shorter than I imagined," Hyunjin lets escape, while feeling the soft fabric of Changbin's hoodie. 

"Is offending people you just met your thing? I can just leave you here, you know?" Changbin grumbles, but there's no real bite to it.

"Nooo," Hyunjin pouts and grabs Changbin's shoulder harder. Oh, it's thicker than he first imagined. "Please, you wouldn't abandon a poor blind boy, would you?"

"Keep testing me, brat," he huffs, "ready?"

"Yeah."

Changbin starts walking really slowly, too slowly, actually.

"You can walk a bit faster, hyung."

"Sorry."

"It's okay, better than walking too fast," Hyunjin tries to reassure Changbin.

"Okay."

They walk a few more meters in complete silence, just the echo of their footsteps. 

"Hyung, uh, so… what year are you in?" Hyunjin tries to break the ice. "So, you make music? That's cool."

"U-uh, yeah, I'm a second year. I-I guess it's cool? Never really thought of it that way."

"You're bragging now?" he says, in a teasing tone.

"I'm not?" Changbin bites the bait. "I just always really loved music and started messing with GarageBand before I realized it. You get it too, right? You're a dance major, aren't you?"

"How did you know it?" Hyunjin asks, genuinely surprised.

"If you're taking dance classes at uni, then you're majoring in dance, right?"

"What if I'm taking special classes for disabled people or something?"

"That didn't even cross my mind. Are you?"

"No," Hyunjin says in a small voice. "I am a dance major." 

"That's cool. Hang on, we got to the elevator." Changbin halts to a stop and Hyunjin hears the button being pressed and pulleys creaking.

"Sorry for the trouble," Hyunjin starts again, "I'm not always like this, like, I can walk around just fine if I know the place?" he moves his hand uncomfortably on Changbin's shoulder, "the elevator not having stuff written in braille didn't help," he finally adds in small voice.

"I mean, I can see just fine and I'd probably get lost too if I had to go to a place I don't know. Of fucking course you can't be expected to know your way around here, and it's okay to ask for help when you need to, you don't have to apologize."

"Thank you," Hyunjin mumbles as the elevator arrives. His palms start sweating and he hopes Changbin can't feel it through the fabric.

As they enter the elevator, they reposition themselves facing the door and the way the metal grates against itself makes Hyunjin's ears ring.

"Oh right, gimme your hand," Changbin says, grabbing the hand Hyunjin has resting on his shoulder. "Whoever designed this place was a moron, so like, the floors on this panel are numbered from top to bottom, not the other way around, so you were actually on the eighth floor," he guides Hyunjin's hand until it touches the control panel. "Here, this is the button you'll need to press next time," he slides Hyunjin's fingers over a couple of buttons, "this is the button for the fourth floor. Second one on the right."

Hyunjin lets out a small "oh" and feels around the buttons. Changbin lightly grabs his hand again and puts it back on his shoulder, but Hyunjin, feeling a bit bolder, slides it down Changbin's arm and hooks it inside his elbow, right when the elevator stops on the fourth floor and the door creaks open.

"What are you doing?" Changbin is finally able to say after sputtering for a few seconds. His arms are thick and solid and Hyunjin definitely likes it.

"I prefer walking this way, hyung" Hyunjin says in a syrupy-sweet tone, showing his best smile.

"Right," Changbin says before he starts walking. "Now we have to find the right room. Which one is it?"

"401B."

"Right, it must be somewhere around here."

Hyunjin can finally hear the faint familiar song his class has been practicing for the last few weeks and as they move forward, he can also hear the sound of shoes squeaking against the wooden floor.

Changbin suddenly stops walking and by the sound of fumbling fabric, he's probably using his phone.

"Sorry, someone keeps messaging me and-- ugh," he groans.

"What is it?"

"Chan-hyung. He wants me to ugh… so, um, this is not me hitting on you, okay?” Changbin turns around and Hyunjin loses contact with the arm he was holding onto. 

“You’re not? Why?” Hyunjin asks in a teasing tone and by the amount of unintelligible babbler Changbin spills before being able to form a coherent sentence, he decides that teasing Changbin is his new favorite hobby.

“Because I’m not the kind of asshole who helps other people waiting for something in exchange?” Changbin sounds a bit frantic and that’s how Hyunjin knows he pushed the right buttons. “Anyway,” he hears a popping sound, like a cap being opened and Changbin grabs his hand again, “this is my phone number, I’m normally in that studio you went to around this time, so if you have any more classes in this period, you can hit me up, so I’ll pick you up at the entrance and bring you here. I can bring you back to the entrance after class too,” he speaks almost too fast while scribbling something on Hyunjin’s palm. “Uh… this was Chan-hyung’s idea, by the way,” he says finally, capping his Sharpie pen.

“Hyung,” Hyunjin chuckles, amused.

“What?”

Hyunjin waves his hand in front of his eyes, as to remind Changbin that he can’t see what’s written on it.

“Fuck!” Changbin slaps himself physically and Hyunjin laughs at that. “I swear it wasn’t on purpose! Fuck, I look like an asshole now.”

“I could never tell,” Hyunjin teases again, just in time to get a choked reaction from Changbin.

“I’m usually not this stupid, okay? It’s just that--'' he groans instead of finishing his sentence. “Anyway, here’s your room,” Changbin takes Hyunjin’s hand and gently maneuvers him so he’s facing the door and his hand is resting on the doorknob. “You can forget about the phone number thing, just give me your phone, so I can add it in your contacts list, or give me your phone number, I don’t know.”

Hyunjin can quite imagine Changbin gesturing frantically and running his hands through his hair, even though he doesn’t have a clear mental image of the older. Maybe he’ll ask to touch his face next time they meet. But for now, he’s not done teasing Changbin, not yet.

“I can read it if I do this,” he puts his hand in front of his eyes and squints really hard, until he can see some blurry black lines against his own skin, letting a smirk slowly form on his lips. “Gasp! Hyung, it says you’re a loser!”

“Did you just say the word ‘gasp’?” 

Hyunjin shrugs. He makes a serious face and extends his hand towards where Changbin’s voice is coming from. “But jokes aside, thank you for doing this for me. Seriously, you didn’t have to.”

Changbin takes the clue and holds Hyunjin’s hand. “It’s fine. Neither me nor Chan-hyung would let you wander alone in this building.”

Changbin’s grip is firm and warm and Hyunjin suddenly feels an unexpected lump form in his throat that makes breathing a bit harder. He blinks a few times to get rid of the stinging sensation in his eyes and then lets go of Changbin’s hand. He thanks him one more time and bows to show how much he appreciated the gesture. Then, he opens the door and is welcomed by the loud beats of the song his team has been practicing for the last few weeks.

* * *

Chan is a great friend. He’s kind, patient, supportive and would definitely sacrifice his own arm for a friend if needed, but he also knows how to be a little shit. 

So when he opened the door for Hyunjin, thinking it was Jisung who was standing on the other side, Changbin should’ve known that his hyung would try to set him up with the pretty blind boy. He didn’t have to finish the song they were working on, there was no time crunch or anything, Chan just wanted to leave the two of them alone, and honestly? It was a miracle Changbin even came back alive because Hyunjin was exactly his type: way out of his league.

After dropping him off at the practice room, Changbin runs back to the studio, ignoring the elevator and taking the stairs instead. Once he's in the studio, he grabs a jacket that was thrown over one of the chairs and screams into it, like a teenage girl in a romance movie. Chan looks at him with the same shit-eating grin he had when he made Changbin take Hyunjin to his practice room.

"So?" Chan wiggles his eyebrows and Changbin considers shaving them off next time he catches his sunbae taking a nap. 

"Not talking about it!" he slumps back on the chair and stares at the ceiling light, hoping the Earth could swallow him whole.

"Come on, Binnie," Chan sing-songs. "Did you give him your number like I told you?" Changbin makes a gurgling noise, refusing to give him a verbal answer. "You know I'll make you take him to his practice room until the administration turns this building more accessible, right?"

"Wait, what?" Changbin sits up straight.

"Yeah, I sent them an email talking about Hyunjin and how they should've thought before relocating an impaired student to a school building that is not equipped to have him," Chan says in a serious tone.

Changbin blinks a few times, taking in what he has just been told. Of course Chan would treat a complete stranger's problem like it was his own.

"Wow, hyung, I really admire your ability to get into everyone's business," he says seriously, no irony to it. "Like, no one would even think of going that far. You're really amazing," he adds, because it's true, Chan does have that tendency.

"You can't change subjects by sincerely complimenting me."

"I'm trying, though?"

"Trying what?" Jisung bursts in, entering the studio at the worst or maybe best timing possible.

"Trying to get a date with a pretty boy from Felix's class," Chan says, earning a light kick from Changbin.

"Ooh, whomst?" Jisung throws his backpack in a corner, sits on a chair and rolls it close to Chan. "I might know who that is." Jisung definitely arrived at the worst time possible.

"Why are you so late, Jisung?" Changbin asks, uselessly trying to change the subject.

"I was hanging out with my beautiful boyfriend, Minho-hyung, whose dance classes have been transferred to this building, which automatically makes this place go from a dump to Paradise," Jisung says almost with no pause between words. "But more importantly, hyung, we're trying to make you not perpetually single anymore, so please don't interrupt."

“I’m _not_ perpetually single!” Changbin protests.

“Then explain why you’re the only single guy out of the three of us,” Jisung asks, triumphantly. 

Because he gets nervous and sweaty around pretty guys. Because he’s so bad at flirting, it’s actually painful to watch. Because he falls in love every five minutes, but ends up befriending all of his crushes and preferring to leave it at that instead of becoming something more.

“B-Because I want to focus on my studies!” he chooses to say, knowing fully well it’s bullshit and neither of them will believe him because Changbin can’t lie, not even to himself.

“Sure, my friend,” Jisung uses one of his funny voices and pats him on the shoulder. “That won’t stop us from trying to get you a pretty date, though,” he swivels his chair around and turns back to Chan. “So, hyung, who are we talking about?”

“Hyunjin? I don’t know if you know him, but he’s from your year and he’s in Felix’s dance team, so I guess Minho knows him too,” Chan says.

“Oh, I know him! Hwang Hyunjin!” Jisung yells and it fills the whole room. “Yeah, we’re from the same batch and we have some required classes together. We almost bit each other’s heads off in the first semester, though. He’s cool.”

“I’m sorry, you what?!” Changbin asks in a disbelieving tone.

“It was a misunderstanding, we’re cool now. Besides, hyung, I don’t want you having to choose between your best friend and your boyfriend,” Jisung turns towards Changbin and winks at him, earning a snort from Chan.

“Since when are you my best friend?” Changbin tries to sound offended, as if he wouldn’t go to war for his squirrel-looking best friend right now, if needed be.

Jisung fakes an exaggerated reaction, clasping his chest and gasping for air, but he immediately abandons it and turns his attention back to Chan. He asks what the plan is and the older recounts what had happened earlier, and how now Changbin is in charge of taking Hyunjin to dance class. They discuss Changbin’s love life like he wasn’t there, and at some point, Jisung even asks if Chan “took into account that Changbin-hyung is a coward”, to which he tries to sound mad, but is promptly ignored.

“Me and Minho-hyung have been trying to introduce you two for _months_ now, but you always say no!” Jisung says at some point.

“Yeah, but what makes you think that I wanna date him, or that I’m into him, for that matter,” Changbin tries to reason.

“C’mon, hyung, you’ve seen him! He’s exactly your type!”

“And what is my type? Tell me,” he crosses his arms over his chest.

“Pretty. And a guy,” Jisung deadpans and Chan laughs from behind him.

Changbin opens his mouth to try to argue, but then closes it again. He has nothing to say back, but being told the truth like this doesn’t feel good at all. Fortunately, Chan tells Jisung to stop bullying him and they resume their work for the rest of the afternoon.

* * *

He goes straight home, inferring that Hyunjin’s lack of contact meant he didn’t need help on his way out. While his roommate, Minho, is not back from his shift at work, he starts doing his homework. He’s able to tackle a good chunk of it when he decided to start cooking dinner. 

Changbin is no cook, but even he can whip up kimchi fried rice and instant ramyun. He had just chopped up the kimchi and spam and put them on the frying pan, and also another pot filled with water to cook his ramyun when his phone vibrates with a new message. He checks on it mindlessly, but upon reading it, he drops his phone on the ground.

 **[Unknown Number] (7:38PM):** Hi, is this Changbin-hyung? It’s Hyunjin

 **You (7:39PM):** yeah, it’s me  
**You (7:39PM):** hi :)

 **hyunjin (7:41PM):** I’m glad I got the right number  
**hyunjin (7:42PM):** My friend said it was hard to decipher what you had written on my hand

 **You (7:42PM):** i was in a hurry ok? and i did try to write down nicely

 **hyunjin (7:44PM):** Anyway, I wanted to thank you again for today

Changbin’s food starts burning on the stove and instead of turning it off, he calls Hyunjin. It takes a few moments until the call is picked up, which Changbin uses to add the rice to the pan and stir it, while holding his phone between his left ear and his shoulder.

"Hey, sorry for calling without asking first," Changbin says cracking an egg over the pan and mixing it with the rest of the ingredients.

 _“Hey,”_ Hyunjin’s voice sounds a bit different when it’s being distorted by the phone static. _“I know I take a while to send texts, but it’s because I need to use an app to read and write them. You don’t need to_ call _me…”_

“Oh, no, no, that’s not it, sorry, I wasn’t thinking that." Hyunjin doesn't answer for a moment, so he lowers the flame and straightens up, holding his phone properly with his left hand. “Are you mad at me for calling you? I’m really sorry, I had the stove on when you started talking to me and I wanted to give you proper attention without burning my food.”

“Oh…” Hyunjin says after a beat of silence, and then Changbin can practically hear him smirking on the other side. “So you wanted to give all your attention to me, hyung?” he asks playfully.

“You brat!” Hyunjin’s chuckle comes from the speaker and he loses any will to scold him. “Since I’m apologizing, sorry for writing on your hand.”

Changbin turns off the burner of the fried rice right when the water for his ramyun starts boiling. He opens the ramyun packet and adds the powder seasoning and vegetables flakes and waits for it to boil a little more.

_“It’s okay, hyung, I don’t mind it and I know you didn’t do that on purpose.”_

He scoffs, stirring the soup with his chopsticks and grabs the block of dried noodles. He’s ready to say it was the wrong thing to do anyway, but Hyunjin speaks first.

_“Besides, it was really cute.”_

Changbin drops the noodles in the pot of boiling soup and it splashes everywhere. It burns his hand and for the second time in the last twenty minutes, he drops his phone on the ground. He spills a very loud string of curse words before he picks up his phone from the floor and puts it against his ear. The sound of Hyunjin’s squeaky laugh almost makes him drop it again.

 _“You alright there, hyung?”_ Hyunjin asks, still laughing. 

"Yeah, I'll live. Unfortunately."

Hyunjin laughs again and Changbin signs the certificate that he's a goner. He knew he had no chance from the very first moment they met, but this is too much. Hyunjin is pretty and laughs easily at him, so maybe what Jisung said about him being exactly Changbin’s type was more spot on than he initially imagined.

They talk a little more while Changbin finishes cooking and it turns out they have a few friends in common. Minho is Hyunjin’s dance team captain and Felix was the friend who kindly deciphered the scribbles Changbin made on his hand.

The call is cut short when Changbin’s ramyun is done cooking and Hyunjin says he’s not in the mood for any eating ASMR, but they promise to meet again so Changbin can take him again to his new dance room.

When Minho comes home, Changbin is sighing while chewing on his cold food.

* * *

  
  


Seungmin brings him home after dance class that day and Hyunjin can’t stop talking about Changbin the whole way to their dorm room. He feels his cheeks are warm and he’s pretty sure it’s not because of the intense choreography his team was practicing earlier.

“He’s Minho-hyung’s roommate and he also knows Jisung! And the other sunbae who was in the room with him was Felix’s boyfriend! Can you believe that?” 

“Jinnie, you can’t get a crush on every boy who’s nice to you,” Seungmin sighs when they reach their room. He was pretty concerned when Hyunjin started telling how he got lost inside the building, but as he started talking more and more about Changbin, Seungmin got bored pretty soon.

“Sorry if not all of us enjoys being ignored by their crush,” Hyunjin says, dropping his bag on the floor and folding his cane.

“Jeongin doesn’t _ignore_ me,” Hyunjin hears Seungmin’s voice going away, towards where their desks are, “he just reacts badly when he’s shown affection, but he never told me to stop,” Seungmin sighs again and his voice assumes a serious tone, less mellow than it usually is. “I just get worried because you tend to crush on every guy who’s nice to you once and then get disappointed afterwards. Remember last semester?”

Hyunjin doesn’t really want to remember the last semester, so he just grunts and lays face first on his pillow. It was a series of rookie mistakes, quite literally. He was just a college freshman, first time away from home, wanting to enjoy what uni life had to offer him. He met a few people who liked the novelty of the blind boy, but weren’t willing to “put up with all the work” it required to be around him. 

Now, having a group of friends who actually care deeply about him sounds almost like a miracle compared to the beginning of his first semester. And it makes his mother feel more at ease back at home.

“Yeah, but look,” he extends his left palm towards Seungmin’s direction, showing the scribbles Changbin left with a marker.

“What is that supposed to be?” Hyunjin swears he can hear his roommate's eyebrow raising. “It’s just a black smudge.”

“Is it?” he brings his hand to his face and traces his palm with his fingertips, like he could read what was once written there. “I guess it rubbed off with all the sweat,” he shrugs, “but Changbin-hyung wrote down his phone number, so I can call him to take me to the practice room.”

"He wrote down his phone number on your hand," Seungmin says in a monotone.

"Yup."

"After guiding you through the building because you're blind."

"That is correct,” Hyunjin nods.

“He’s a moron.”

“I can’t deny that.”

“I take back everything I said, you’re the perfect match for each other.”

“You’re so mean to anyone who isn’t Jeongin!” Hyunjin huffs and thrashes on his bed.

“But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, I think,” Seungmin sounds pensive. “From what you’ve said, he sounds like a nice person. Minho-hyung also said the same, didn’t he?”

Hyunjin extends his arm, looking at the blurry shadow his hand forms against the bright bedroom light. “Minho-hyung said he’s a loser, so I guess it means he’s good.”

“That’s good enough, then.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Hyunjin sighs and gets up. 

He hangs his folded cane on a hook near the door, then goes to his closet and picks up a set of clean clothes and heads out, towards the bathroom. “I’m gonna take a shower,” he announces, when he’s mostly out of the room.

“You should’ve done that before laying on your bed!” Seungmin scolds him from the other side of the door.

After the shower, Hyunjin sits on the couch in the communal area and opens his phone to send a message to Changbin. There’s no one there, so he can use Voice Over with some privacy and not disturb Seungmin’s studies. 

Hyunjin looked at his left palm again, even though he scrubbed it as hard as he could and his roommate told him the ink was totally gone. The ten minutes he had spent with Changbin were enough to make him feel something funny in his stomach and procrastinate on sending a single text thanking him for earlier. He takes a deep breath and bulldozes through it.

A couple of messages in, his phone starts vibrating in his hand and it says it’s a call from Changbin. His knee-jerk reaction is to throw it against the wall, but he decides against it. Then comes the familiar feeling of irritation, the _“Oh, here we go again”_ , that comes whenever someone he just met gets impatient with his slowness to reply to a text. 

He tries his best to even out his voice and picks up the call. Changbin starts talking by apologizing for calling without asking and then apologizes again for making Hyunjin think he was being impatient. And then Hyunjin’s heart is ready to compete at trampolining in the next Olympic games.

There are no rehearsed lines, that usual push-and-pull that comes with meeting someone new and you’re still in the flirting phase. Changbin is easy to read and even easier to tease, and the yelps and splutters that come from the phone’s speakers only make him want to bully the older more and more.

When the call ends, he hugs his legs against his chest and sighs deeply, feeling his cheeks all warm again. 

* * *

  
  


A different girl guides Hyunjin to the old building this time and he thanks her with the brightest smile he can muster. Changbin sent him a message earlier saying he’d be waiting for him by the entrance, and once he gets there, he hears a “Hey” in a now familiar voice and the sound of feet dragging against the ground, getting closer to him.

A day has passed since their first meeting and after that first phone call, talking to Changbin became some kind of a habit, albeit a really recent one. 

He hooks his arm on Changbin’s and he can practically feel the older’s face overheating. 

Once they’re in the old, noisy elevator, Changbin takes Hyunjin’s hand and guides it over the buttons. There is something protruding on one of them, the one for the fourth floor. He feels it more carefully and it turns out to be a star. He lets out a small gasp and unhooks his other arm from Changbin and touches the rest of the panel, and finds another circular shape protruding from another button.

“Chan-hyung put those there yesterday. The star is the fourth floor and the round one is the ground floor,” Changbin says while Hyunjin presses the button with the star sticker. “He emailed admin, but they haven’t answered yet, so he glued those stickers so you can walk around more independently.”

It was an influx of new information Hyunjin was not prepared to receive. The stickers were already cute enough, but someone emailing the school administration over him? 

His mouth moved faster than his brain.

"I love Felix, but I gotta steal Chan-hyung from him," he said all in one breath.

Changbin laughs and it's Hyunjin's first time hearing it, a genuine laugh, not a shy chuckle or a snort over the phone. Laughter that came at full throttle from his lungs, loud and unimpeded, filling the whole elevator, echoing against its walls, and ah, Hyunjin just loved it.

"Get in line, bitch," Changbin says right when the elevator doors open, grabbing Hyunjin's hand and hooking on the crook of his elbow.

“Wait, you like him?” his heart does something funny and he tries to ignore it.

“Anyone who knows Chan-hyung likes Chan-hyung, that’s a universal truth, it goes beyond gender and sexuality,” Changbin says as they start walking towards the practice room. Hyunjin says nothing. He, for some reason, can’t conjure his usual sarcasm. “But I, uh, don’t like him that way.”

“Why not?” Hyunjin could tell they were close to the practice room by the buzzing sound of conversation, and maybe it would be better to leave that question for when they had more time, but it was burning him alive. “He seems to be really nice, I can definitely see that.”

“Believe me, you can’t.”

“Hyung,” he reminds Changbin, but it’s mostly a joke.

“Shit, sorry, but like, I’m serious. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I did have a crush on him when we first met. The hot and kind upperclassman? Lil’ old baby freshman me had no chance.”

“So you think he’s hot?” he asks teasingly.

“You have no idea. We work out together and like, he has dimples. More than one on each cheek,” they stopped walking at some point and Changbin is just there, blabbering. “You could probably read it, I bet it says something in braille.”

“Oh no,” Hyunjin chuckles, “what do you think it says?”

“I am whipped for Lee Feelix,” Changbin tries a poor imitation of Chan’s voice.

Hyunjin doubles over laughing and he can hear his own shrill voice bouncing from the floor and walls. He has to hold onto Changbin in order to not fall onto his butt. It takes a few moments until his breath is stable enough for him to be able to talk again.

“So how did you get over it?” he asks, wiping a non-existent tear from his eye. They start walking again.

“What?”

“Your crush. How did you get over it?’

“Oh, uh,” Changbin clears his throat, “I mean, he’s still hot, but I just realized at some point that I don’t wanna make out with him.”

“But he’s still nice, isn’t he?” 

“Yeah?” Changbin stops walking once again, but they’re practically in front of the makeshift new dance room, Hyunjin knows the door is not completely closed because practice hasn’t started yet, so he can clearly hear Felix’s low voice coming from the inside. “Wait, you mean you wanna make out with anyone who is nice to you?”

“Oh, look, hyung, here’s my stop,” he detangles his arm from Changbin and starts walking by himself towards the practice room. “Thank you for bringing me here.”

“Oi, Hyunjin, answer me!” Changbin half yells.

“I’m afraid I’ll be late for practice if I stay any longer,” he pushes the door all the way open and goes inside, closing it behind him.

* * *

  
  


Changbin is alone in the cafeteria, but not by choice. All of his friends had something else to do or somewhere else to be during lunch time, and he normally avoids the school cafeteria, but payday is still far from coming and his wallet feels way too light in his back pocket. 

The food isn’t that bad, compared to the price he’s paying, but he’d rather eat at a dingy food stall off campus with good company than at this overcrowded hall at an empty table.

He doesn’t realize he was spacing out until he hears Jisung’s voice saying, “Hey, loser, can we sit here?”

Jisung pulls out a chair without waiting for Changbin’s answer, and behind him, Hyunjin is holding his tray on his forearm and his cane with the other hand. Changbin motions to get up, but Jisung stops him.

“The table is right in front of you, the loser I talked to is Changbin-hyung.”

Hyunjin’s expression changes into a smirk as he carefully lowers his tray onto the table and sits down in front of Changbin. Jisung sits on his left.

“Hi, hyung,” Hyunjin says with a saccharine fake smile Changbin has come to recognize through the last week. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around here,” he finishes, smiling at his own joke.

“Do you, now?” Changbin asks with an also faked annoyance. “I try not to eat here if I can, but I haven’t gotten my paycheck yet, so” he picks up a chunk of rice and shoves it in his mouth. His food somehow tastes better now, even though it has gotten cold already.

He looks at Hyunjin reaching for his cutlery, while Jisung gives him short instructions as to where his dishes are in the tray. “Bowl on your left is rice, the one on the right has kimchi, aunty gave you extra today. In the big plate, meat is at three o’clock, deep-fried vegetables at twelve.” Hyunjin touches everything with the tip of his fork, checking the positions Jisung has just just described him. Changbin observes everything with a silent curiosity. It was something that never occurred to him, and they’re always talking about learning a new thing everyday, whoever “they” are.

Jisung has this weird way of eating, he shoves food in his mouth and stores it in his cheeks like a squirrel preparing for Winter. Today, though, he inhales his meal so fast Changbin worries he’ll end up eating the plates too. Hyunjin also notices that Jisung is awfully quiet, save for the chewing noises (when he does actually chew his food) and has his head turned towards him. 

Jisung washes everything down by gulping an entire can of soda at once, pounds his chest, burps loudly and then gets up. Hyunjin looks disgusted by the sound, but his face says that he’s used to that scene.

“My homos, I have an essay due in…” he looks at an imaginary watch on his wrist, “two hours and I have only written my name, so this is my cue to leave you guys. Please don’t cry, I know you’ll miss me dearly,” he kisses his own hand and pats it against Hyunjin’s cheek, who makes a gagging noise. “Anyway, Jinsungie out!” He leaves, taking his tray with him.

Changbin is left looking at Jisung’s back as he leaves the hall and Hyunjin resumes eating.

“Does he always do that?’ Changbin asks.

“What? Leave his homework for the last minute possible? Yes.”

“No, I meant leaving you alone, like this.”

Hyunjin eats a bit clumsily, food falls from his fork and he has to constantly touch around to pick what he wants to eat next. Changbin lowkey wants to feed him because he’s stupid and already whipped for the younger, but he also knows that Hyunjin takes pride in being as independent as he possibly can. So he just observes, quietly finishing his own meal.

“I mean, I’m not alone, am I?” Hyunjin looks up and Changbin is sure his eyes are actually looking into his soul. He says nothing.

“He left early because you’re here,” Hyunjin smiles, “he’d normally start doing his work right here.”

“Yeah, that does sound like him,” Changbin concludes. 

They fall into silence, but it’s not uncomfortable, not really. Changbin’s plate is empty, but Hyunjin has just started his meal, so it’s understandable that he’s so quiet. But Changbin doesn’t like it, the silence. When he’s alone, it’s when unpleasant thoughts decide to settle in, so tries to surround himself with other people, however, silence, when he has another person with him is the worst kind, he thinks. So he breaks it.

“You’ve never really explained that thing about wanting to make out with anyone who’s nice to you,” he starts, because Changbin is good at being kind, but he’s bad at mincing his words.

Hyunjin almost chokes mid-bite, but he somehow is capable of swallowing his food and Changbin doesn’t have to think of doing the Heimlich maneuver in the middle of the cafeteria. 

“It’s not like _that_ , okay?” Hyunjin starts to defend himself. “But me, I tend to focus on someone’s personality rather than his looks,” he points at himself, “for obvious reasons. You, on the other hand, basically told me you get a crush on any hot dude who’s around you.”

“That’s because it’s true,” Changbin admits easily because Hyunjin doesn’t respect any reputation he might try to have, and it’s not like he has any dignity to defend either.

Hyunjin is caught midway through surprise and a burst of laughter and that's basically what he does, ungraciously trying to not spit his drink on Changbin's face.

"Listen," Changbin continues once Hyunjin puts his drink down. "I'm just tiny and dumb and gay. What do you want from me?" Hyunjin has his chin resting on his hand and his eyes crinkle with amusement, he also has a lopsided smile that shows a bit of teeth. "That's all there is to me. God took one look at me and said, 'I'm gonna make this asshole be super gay and super dumb' and here I am. I don't have a type. If a pretty boy exists in the same space as me, I'm already planning our wedding in my mind."

And he's already asked himself countless times what kind of flowers Hyunjin would like at their venue. He'd look amazing under a wisteria trellis, the purple would contrast well with his skin tone.

"Yeah, I get where you're coming from, but I've never been the kind who only gets attracted to looks, you know?" 

"I guess pretty people don't get affected as much by other pretty people."

"Hyung, c'mon," Hyunjin quirks an eyebrow and Changbin slaps himself.

"See? I even get dumber than I already am!"

Hyunjin chuckles and then stops, like he's been hit with a sudden realization.

"Wait, you think I'm pretty?" He asks with genuine surprise in his voice.

Changbin makes a choked noise before saying, "I mean, that's more of a fact than my personal opinion."

Hyunjin has a delighted smile while he picks up another bite of food.

"Then do you have a crush on me?" He draws up the conclusion like a final chess move, calling checkmate on Changbin's stupid gay ass.

He makes another series of choked noises because he's cornered and it's all his fault for talking without thinking. 

“Yeah?” His voice sounds strained, so he clears his throat. “Like, it’s not a big deal, okay? It’s fine,” he’s talking too fast, “it’ll probably go away soon.” He scratches the back of his head and then covers his face to hide the redness of his cheeks, even though Hyunjin can’t see it anyway. “I’m really sorry, I can ask someone else to help you around,” he says, voice partially muffled by his hands and too afraid to look the younger in the eye.

Hyunjin’s smile falters for a millisecond and Changbin almost misses it, but he chooses to ignore whatever that was.

“No, I ah, um, it’s okay. I’m not uncomfortable around you, hyung, don’t worry.”

Changbin lowers his hands and Hyunjin is poking around the last pieces of deep-fried vegetables he has on his plate. He stabs a piece of eggplant and brings it up to his mouth, but he stops midway through, sniffs it and then asks, “this is eggplant, isn’t it?”

“Uh, yeah?”

“Ugh, that fucking squirrel said there was no eggplants!” He throws his fork dramatically onto the plate, sighing heavily.

There’s a beat of silence and this time, it’s awkward.

“So, um…” Changbin tries to start a conversation again. “Now that I’ve exposed myself beyond repair, uh, it’s your turn.”

“Are we playing twenty questions now?”

“No, like, I ah… I’m just curious.”

“About…?” Hyunjin recovers his teasing tone, as he leans forward on the table.

“Uh…” Changbin shifts on his seat. “Your type?” He asks tentatively.

“Hm…” Hyunjin ponders, taking a sip from his soda can. When he puts it down, Changbin tries not to stare at his lips, but Hyunjin makes his life that much harder by licking them. “I think Park Jinyoung?”

“The dude with the plastic pants?” Changbin asks, taken aback.

“No! That’s the old guy, right? I’m talking about the younger one! His stage name was Junior when he first debuted.”

“Oh, I know him. Yeah, uh… yeah, he’s nice.”

“Hyung,” Hyunjin chuckles, “I had already lost a lot of my eyesight when I got into him. I just like his singing voice.” Changbin lets out a small “oh” before Hyunjin shifts a bit and continues talking. “I like listening to his interviews too. Like, he sounds serious and people call him ‘prince’ or whatever, but he can be pretty funny too? And he appears to be really warm and kind. Yeah, I really like that.”

Hyunjin has a soft expression on his face, his cheeks are dusted pink and his lips aren’t curved in his usual cheeky smile. Changbin is not much of a picture guy, but he wishes to capture this moment forever. A voice in his head says Hyunjin wouldn’t notice if he took a photo with his phone, but he opts for something more permanent, so he burns this image in his heart.

“I actually thought you were gonna ask about something else when you said it was my turn.” Hyunjin’s eyes are turned to the ceiling, and even though it sounds dumb, Changbin feels like he’s avoiding looking him in the eye.

“And what did you think I was gonna ask?”

“How I lost my vision.” His voice sounds cold and too unfamiliar.

“Oh,” Changbin didn’t expect that because it was honestly something that didn’t cross his mind. He did have a mild curiosity, but he knew better than to poke around a story that wasn’t his. “I didn’t ask because it’s not my business,” he says simply.

Hyunjin says nothing, but he tucks a strand of hair behind his ear and brings his hands to his lap. The pink on his cheeks gains intensity and spreads to the tips of his ears while he looks down and way smaller than he is. This is now the image Changbin has forever burned in his heart.

* * *

  
  


Hyunjin is sitting on a bench in the main building’s entrance hall. His classes are done for the day, but he can’t go home because it’s raining outside, he has no umbrella and Seungmin is out, doing a group project. 

He listens to the pitter-patter of raindrops hitting against the glass windows and considers finding a study room to stay until the rain is gone. Ms. Oh, the receptionist, offered to call a cab for him, but he declined. He could wait a couple of hours.

He gets up, unfolds his cane and before he could take any steps, he hears Changbin’s voice calling out for him. It takes him by surprise because even though they have been meeting almost everyday for the last month, Hyunjin has never met him in the normal class buildings or during normal class hours, as if Changbin only existed inside the old Music Production Department building or in the cafeteria hall, during that one time.

“Going home?” Changbin asks.

“Not really,” Hyunjin sighs, “it’s raining, so I’m kinda stuck here until it passes. What about you, hyung?”

“I’m going to work now, but I can lend you my umbrella, if you want.” 

“I don’t like walking in the rain, but thanks for the offer. You’re going to the studio? Can I tag along?” 

“I mean, you can, but I’m not going to the studio.”

“No?” Hyunjin deflates a bit. He really wanted to hang at the studio some day.

“I have a normal job,” Changbin clears his throat.

Hyunjin has always prided himself for being good at reading people, so when he started losing his eyesight and it became progressively harder for him to catch small changes in facial expressions, he started paying more attention to other details. Nervous coughs, voice tones that went up an octave, feet shuffling. He could almost say that he was better at identifying those small clues now than before, and Changbin is really an open book, so when he senses a sliver of embarrassment in voice, he pokes at it.

"Really? And where do you work at?" He asks.

“A coffee shop,” Changbin coughs.

“The ones on campus?”

“...No. Um… have you, uh… heard of Café Matryoshka just outside campus?” Hyunjin can practically hear him getting all red.

Café Matryoshka was a dessert café near their university that was really famous among female students and also a hot point for newly formed couples because it was known for being really, really cute. Aside from pretty and sweet pastries and assorted drinks, they also sold pieces of décor (lots of matryoshka dolls), stationery and all sorts of cute stuff.

Someone also mentioned that the staff had to wear frilly aprons.

Hyunjin smirks.

"I would _really_ love to tag along, hyung."

Changbin scoffs and then they set out for a twenty minutes walk in the rain. The mechanics are complicated because Hyunjin has to hold onto Changbin and he also needs his cane, and it turns out that ten centimeters of height difference _really_ creates an imbalance when you’re trying to avoid getting wet.

The older keeps giving instructions about obstacles and even small cracks in the pavement and water puddles to avoid. Those are mostly things that can be easily avoided because that’s what his cane is for, but he thinks it’s sweet anyway.

“Hey, can I ask you a question?” Changbin says at some point, while they’re waiting for the traffic light to turn green. “It’s okay if you don’t want to, though.”

“What is it?”

“Why don’t you like walking in the rain?”

The question is a bit of a surprise. Changbin never asks about his condition, the few things he knows being details that Hyunjin told him himself. And it’s good, actually, it doesn’t feel like he’s purposefully avoiding the subject or anything, it’s quite the opposite. Changbin forgets about his impairment so often it has become an internal joke between them. 

“It’s just too loud,” he says after a moment. “It’s hard to tell what’s going on around me when all I can hear is the rain.”

“Ah,” Changbin gently pulls him back right when a car zooms past them and splashes water on their feet. “I thought it was something else. Sorry for asking.”

“Hyung,” he sighs, “you don’t need to apologize, it’s okay to ask questions if you’re curious. I mean, people do it all the time and they aren’t half as nice about it as you are. Seriously, it’s fine.”

"Okay… okay," Changbin says in a small voice. "Then… Can I ask another question? This one is kinda dumb, though."

“Shoot.”

“Okay, so, in Daredevil,” Hyunjin starts laughing. “Not the series, that old movie with Ben Affleck, the really bad one… like, there’s a scene in the rain, which is when he gets to see Elektra for the first time…”

If they weren’t outside, in the rain, Hyunjin probably would be rolling on the ground with laughter. Changbin sighs, embarrassed and even mumbles, “See? I told you it was stupid.” 

“Nah, it’s fine,” he says, when he’s finally able to talk again. “Someone has asked me something similar once. And no, it’s like Daredevil. And the rain has the opposite effect on me, it only makes me disoriented.”

“Was that someone Jisung?”

“...Yes.”

“God, I feel even dumber now. But I kinda wish the rain thing was real.”

“Why?”

“Because then you could see how handsome I am,” Changbin answers in a cheeky tone, and before Hyunjin can retort, he hears Changbin folding his umbrella and gently guiding him through a door with a hand on the small of his back. “We’re here,” he announces.

The door has a bell.

By his request, Changbin sits him in a quiet corner that also has a power outlet and heads to the backroom in order to change into his uniform. He takes out his laptop and starts working on his homework. 

He orders an iced americano from the girl at the counter and it’s Changbin who brings it to his table. Hyunjin reaches out and tries touching his apron. It feels like plain cotton, no frills.

“...What are you doing?” Changbin asks.

“I heard you had to wear frilly aprons, so I was checking if it was true or not.”

“It is not,” Changbin takes his hand off from where it was. Hyunjin pouts. “The fancy ones had to be sent to the cleaner and they got caught everywhere because they also had lace, so now we wear plain ones.”

“What color is it?”

“Black.”

“Boring,” Hyunjin boos and it makes Changbin chuckle. 

Changbin goes back to work and Hyunjin takes a sip of his americano. He winces at how bitter it is and then searches for the sugar packets on his table. He adds three of them, but they don't help at all, so he just resigns and forces himself to take a small sip every now and then, even though it tastes horrible.

The shop is pretty full and he hears the bell chiming all the time, as well as Changbin's voice in the background, talking to the customers. It sounds different than normal, softer. Hyunjin likes the way it rings.

He hears people whispering around him and he knows it's about him. He used to be a lot more self conscious in the past, but now, if no one comes to bother him, he just ignores it and concentrates on whatever task he has ahead of him.

But the thing is, people do come to bother him. Maybe being in public gives them the impression they're entitled to that kind of interaction, and soon enough, he hears the chair in front of him being dragged and someone sitting on it. He hopes it's just a friend who saw him sitting alone and came to talk to him, but aside from Jisung who was probably raised by wild chipmunks, everyone he knew would first call out to him before sitting down. Because that's the polite thing to do, visually impaired or not.

"Hey there," the guy says and Hyunjin turns his head up. "Pretty sweet get up you have there."

"Ahn… thanks?" He answers curtly, trying not to roll his eyes.

"So, pretty boy, are you gonna tell me your name?"

This time, Hyunjin actually rolls his eyes.

"I have no obligation to?"

"Hmm… playing hard to get. I like it." Hyunjin feels weight added to the table and he guesses the guy is leaning on it. "I'm Minjoon."

Hyunjin sighs, figuring he won't be able to get any work done until the guy is gone.

"Wow, not even a handshake?" Hyunjin is starting to hate his voice, how obnoxious it is. Minjoon himself, though, he already hated him from moment one. "So, what's the thing on your laptop for?"

The "thing" Minjoon was probably referring to was Hyunjin's braille display, the big one he used when he had long texts to type, like the essay he was trying to write before being rudely interrupted.

"It's a braille display," he says.

"And what is it for?"

"I guess the name is pretty self-explanatory, Minjoon-ssi."

"Wait, are you actually blind?" Oh, here it comes. "I saw the cane, but I didn't think it was actually true. You don't look blind to me."

Hyunjin tastes bile in the back of his throat. He has heard that phrase countless times over the years, but it never fails to make his stomach churn. He has no idea what that even means.

The worst part is that Hyunjin never knows how to chase these people away. He naturally tries to avoid conflict, it's mostly subconscious, but his consciousness also only fights with people he's already close to. If Jisung was there, he would have already told Minjoon to fuck off. Even Seungmin, in his prep-school soft-spoken way would've already done it politely.

Hyunjin, though, is neither of them, so he has to endure it.

"With all due respect, but what the fuck does that even mean?"

Or not.

Changbin comes in at the right moment, like he always does. He sounds furious.

"If he could see, he wouldn't be keeping up with your ugly face for so long. Sadly, he can't, but you can, so go look at yourself and reflect about what you've done, thinking it was okay to harass a disabled person just because you thought he was hot." 

Hyunjin doesn't know how Changbin's face looks right now or how he's standing, what's his overall body language, but there's a clear threat in his voice. He's talking in a low volume, and it almost sounds like a dog growling. Hyunjin swallows around the lump in his throat and his stomach feels funny, but not in a bad way.

There's a moment of heavy silence and even the chatter around them seems to subside. Hyunjin is about to say it's fine, when Minjoon drags the chair against the floor and gets up.

"You could've said you had a boyfriend," he practically spits.

A plate clatters against his table and he also hears cutlery clinking against it. 

"Here," Changbin, still seething, guides Hyunjin's hand to the edge of the plate. "It's a cake. Chocolate with strawberries."

"I didn't order it, though."

"No, it's--" he gives a deep breath, "I dropped it onto the plate so it smushed a little on the side. It's fine, but we can't sell it, so consider it an apology for the americano, I saw you struggling to drink it." A shy laugh.

"It's fine, hyung. It's not that bad," Hyunjin feels himself blushing.

"Chaeyeon is new here, so she hasn't really figured out yet how to make the coffee taste good."

Changbin is still loosely holding Hyunjin's hand, so he takes the opportunity to grab it tightly. 

"Thank you, hyung," he's not referring to the cake.

“You’re welcome.” Changbin knows.

He works on his essay for another hour or so after devouring the slice of cake. He’s able to finish it way before he thought he would, so he’s just editing it when he hears Changbin softly calling out to him.

There are a lot less customers now compared to a couple of hours ago, so he took the opportunity to take his break.

“This is a latte. Careful, it’s hot,” he says, putting something down on the table, next to Hyunjin’s hand.

“Hyung, you won’t get your paycheck if you keep treating me like this,” Hyunjin says, carefully lifting up the cup with two hands and welcoming the pleasant smell it emits. He takes a tentative sip and feels the foam brush against his upper lip, which he licks off and tastes the sweetness of it. Changbin has added sugar.

Hyunjin feels his cheeks go warm again and then takes another sip, this time he breaks through the foam barrier and is able to properly taste the drink. It’s just the right amount of sweetness and it still tastes like good coffee, without any bitterness or sourness. Never in a million years he’d guess that Changbin was good at making coffee.

“Did you make this?” He asks, even though he knows the answer.

“Yeah? I told you, Chaeyeon is not good at making coffee yet,” Changbin sounds like he’s drinking something too.

“Wait… did you make latte art?” 

“...No?” Changbin sounds flustered and that tells Hyunjin that he hit the jackpot. 

“What did you draw, hyung? Tell meeee,” he sing-songs in the most obnoxious tone he can summon.

“A dick. A drew a dick because that’s what you are.” Changbin huffs. Hyunjin puts his cups down so he can laugh without spilling any hot coffee on himself.

(Changbin had actually made a heart out of muscle memory, but he would never tell that to Hyunjin.)

Hyunjin then asks Changbin to describe the café and he does his best during his fifteen minute break. The front facade has red apparent bricks and the interior is decorated “like it came straight out of a Pinterest mood board about vintage décor”, with mismatched furniture, that made it all look like a cozy and charming grandma’s living room. They have a huge glass display case with all kinds of desserts and their best-selling items are the macarons decorated like little matryoshka dolls. There is a corner dedicated to selling all kinds of decorative knick-knacks and cute stationary that may or may not be matryoshka themed, and Changbin is not allowed to go there because he’s really clumsy and he broke some of the merch in the past. Students from their university bring their products like ceramic cups and art prints to be sold there because the owners are also alumni who want to help other college students. Changbin started working there in his first year because he desperately needed the money, but stayed because he liked the work environment.

When Changbin’s break time is up, he tells Hyunjin that the rain has stopped and he can ask one of his friends to pick him up and take him home.

“You’ve been here for almost three hours and I still have two more hours, if Seungmin is still busy, I can get Jisung or Chan-hyung to come here. I think I can even blackmail Minho-hyung to do it, but I’d rather not.”

Hyunjin hadn’t realized he had been there for so long, and that fact takes him by surprise.

“If I stay, can you walk me home after you’re done with work?” He asks.

“Sure.”

“I’ll stay, then,” he answers with a smile.

Walking home is much easier when you don’t have to squeeze under an umbrella with someone else. Changbin is still fuming because of what happened earlier with that Minjoon guy, which Hyunjin had mostly forgotten at that point.

“Seriously, hyung, just forget it. I’m kinda used to that, anyway.”

“But you shouldn’t be? That’s just absurd! It makes no sense!” Changbin was so exasperated, it honestly made Hyunjin’s heart do crazy gymnastics.

“I know, hyung, but that’s just how people are,” he says, wanting to be done with that subject. “Thank you, anyway.”

“Hyunjin,” Changbin starts, his voice lower and serious. “You told me earlier to stop apologizing all the time, so I want to tell you that you don’t need to thank me for everything I do.”

“Okay,” he mumbles.

“You can thank me for actual favors, like buying you coffee or lending you money, but the way I treat you is not a favor, it’s just the way people should treat you all the time.”

Hyunjin forgets how to breathe for a second. He tightens the grip around his cane and then breathes in and out deeply. Changbin thinks kindness towards others is a given, not a favor. An obvious action that shouldn’t be thanked for, something he expects nothing in return.

“Th-- okay, okay,” he whispers, more to himself than to Changbin. He tries to change subjects, because he feels too bare and exposed. “Hyung, how come you never showed me your music?”

“Hm? But you’ve heard it though? The song you guys used in the last semester’s showcase was made by me, Jisung and Chan-hyung.”

“Yes, I know,” Hyunjin still remembers the steps of that particular choreography, “but it was all instrumental. Jisung said you’re good at writing lyrics. And rapping.”

Changbin chokes and tries to poorly disguise it as a cough. “He did?” He manages to ask, sounding actually surprised. 

“He did. You should show it to me sometime. Felix and Minho-hyung also praised you a lot.”

Changbin clears his throat, embarrassed and they walk the rest of the way in a comfortable silence. Hyunjin knows the older is not a fan of being quiet, so he finds it strange, but he doesn’t comment on it, considering he also has many thoughts of his own.

The student housing building is in the inner part of campus, a good walk away from the main gates. It’s also too out of the way for Changbin, who lives in an apartment off campus. 

They reach the hall and Hyunjin announces he can go home on his own from there. He actually could’ve done that from the main gate, but he wanted to enjoy a little more of Changbin’s company.

Suddenly, a thought occurs to him. He’s reminded of the conversation they had earlier, in the rain, about Daredevil. 

“Hyung, is there anyone around us?” It was quiet, but he could never tell when the hall was actually empty or not.

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Uh, sure?” His voice is an octave higher.

“Can I, uh, touch your face?” This question is always awkward, no matter how many times he asks it. “You know, to have an idea of what you look like? You’re the only one I haven’t asked yet.” Because he has expectations. “I even got to read Chan-hyung’s dimples. You were right, it really says he’s whipped for Felix.” Maybe a joke can make it less awkward.

“Yeah,” Changbin says with a chuckle.

Hyunjin has big hands and he knows it. He compared sizes with Felix once and he could almost bend his knuckles over his friend’s fingers, but Felix also happened to have very small hands. So he takes advantage of that fact, and just to piss off Changbin, he plops his hand on the older’s face.

“Wow, you have a big nose,” he declares in a faked monotone, barely containing his giggles.

“Yah!” Changbin protests and his hot breath against Hyunjin’s hand makes his palm feel ticklish.

He does it properly this time, lightly brushing his fingertips on Changbin’s face and trying to take in as many details as he possibly can. Changbin does indeed have a big nose, but he also has thick eyelashes, and full cheeks. His hair is also thick and it seems to be a bowl cut that covers his eyebrows, and Hyunjin decides that he likes the shape of his head. When his hands reach Changbin’s ears, he can hear the older swallowing audibly, but he continues, without commenting on it. He also can barely stop himself from trembling. Changbin has two earrings on his left ear and a single one on his right one, and none of them seem to match the other. He likes it too. His hands go down a bit more, reaching Changbin’s pointy chin, he touches something that feels like a scar, and he guesses it tickles him, because Changbin giggles and Hyunjin has to remember how to breathe.

* * *

Changbin has a cold. It could’ve been from walking twenty minutes in the rain, getting half of his body wet, so he could keep Hyunjin dry, or maybe the abrupt temperature drop from all the heat his face generated when it was being touched by the younger and then hit by the cold wind on his way back home. Who knows, it could be anything.

He had a fever during the whole weekend and he had to ask Minho to buy medicine for him. His roommate complained about it for hours before going out, but when he came back, he had brought soup to nurse Changbin back to health, because Minho is nothing but a secret sap.

It’s mostly gone now, aside from a runny nose, his voice sounding hoarse and eventual sneezing fits. 

He’s alone in the studio, messing around on the computer, working on a new song, but not really. It’s not the same when neither Chan or Jisung aren’t there to bounce around new ideas, but since Hyunjin mentioned he wanted to listen to one of his works, he has been trying to make something he’d be proud to show the younger. God forbid if Hyunjin found the monstrosity the three of them recorded earlier in the year. He shivers in terror just imagining it.

His phone dings on the desk, indicating he got a new message, and it's Hyunjin saying he got his afternoon class cancelled and asking if he can hang out at the studio with Changbin. He says he’ll be waiting at the elevator.

Hyunjin has memorized his way to the Music Production Department’s old building and he doesn’t really need Changbin to guide him around, but they kept doing it, as an excuse to spend more time with each other. They act like they’re on borrowed time, like that space is the only place they can meet, which is not entirely untrue, it’s only a matter of time until the renovation is done and Hyunjin goes back to his normal life before accidentally getting off the wrong floor.

They only met outside twice. Changbin never asks for more because it feels like he’s overstepping his boundaries, and Hyunjin’s lack of initiative also corroborates his theory, but he tries not to think too much about it.

Hyunjin has an ominous grin on his face when they meet that gives Changbin a sense of foreboding he chooses to ignore. 

The younger sits on a chair and while Changbin is clicking away on the computer, Hyunjin says something that makes him regret being born on this planet.

“Jisung showed me one of your songs.” Changbin stops in his tracks. “I think it was called ‘Wow’?”

His blood freezes and he prays for a comet to hit planet Earth right now. Maybe an earthquake will hit the Korean Peninsula and it’ll be strong enough to knock the whole building down, if he’s lucky.

Hyunjin shows him a blinding smile that has no trace of kindness in it and then imitates Changbin’s opening line, “With a smirk, I suddenly come in”. 

For a second, Changbin is sure he’s astral projecting. He can see the both of them sitting in the studio from above, like he’s floating or something. Then, Hyunjin’s loud laughter brings him back to reality. He’s still alive, unfortunately.

“Oh God, I can’t _believe_ Jisung showed you that,” he says, pressing the balls of his hands against his eyes until he sees stars. “Did he tell you why he did that?”

“No, he just barged in the other day, saying he had something to show me,” Hyunjin says, playing with his cane. “Not gonna lie, hyung, I kinda expected that from him, but hearing your voice took me by surprise.”

Changbin makes a sound that is half a whine and half a grunt. He covers his face with his hands and mutters something against them.

“I can’t understand you,” Hyunjin sing-songs in a sugary tone, faker than corn syrup.

“It was a JOKE!” He whines, making Hyunjin laugh. “I really can’t believe Jisung did it, God,” he slumps in his chair, rubbing his temples.

“Why did you make it, though?” Hyunjin is still fiddling with his cane. “Jisung emphasized that you were the one who produced it.”

Changbin looks over to Hyunjin and then sits up straight. “Are you disappointed that I wrote a fuckboy song?”

“N-No!” He runs his fingers through his hair, flustered. “I don’t know, I just didn’t expect that, I guess.”

“And Jisung didn’t tell you why this song exists?”

“No…”

Changbin sighs so deeply he can feel his lungs collapsing. “As I said, it was a joke. It was more like weird behavioral therapy for Jisung, because that was how he was when he first here. I don’t know if you remember, but he used to hit on literally every pretty girl he saw.” He sighs again and then sits back, more relaxed. “So me and Chan-hyung made a plan to write the cringiest song we could with him and play it to him whenever he started talking like Joey from Friends.”

“Oh… So, um, it was kinda like gay conversion therapy?”

“I guess?” Changbin laughs and Hyunjin also has a crooked smile on his pretty lips. “We knew that was all an act, you know? Overcompensation or some shit. I guess we could’ve been gentler about it, but like, there were guys threatening to beat him up for catcalling their girlfriends and we were getting pretty tired too.”

“Ugh, yeah, I get it,” Hyunjin winces, “we almost got in a fight last semester too. So…” he finds a way to poke Changbin’s foot with the tip of his cane. “The things you said in the song were all a joke?”

“Uh, yeah? Fuck, I can barely talk to someone I like without choking on my spit, why would I talk like that? To a woman, on top of that?”

“So, uh… you never even thought of like, hitting on a girl?” Hyunjin sounds slightly embarrassed for asking that.

“Hm… no? I kinda just realized one day that I liked dudes and moved on with my life,” Changbin shrugs while Hyunjin lets out a small “oh”. “I actually asked a lesbian friend for tips. I wanted to make sure I was hitting all the wrong marks.”

Hyunjin laughs and Changbin has to look away. He hadn't really noticed up until now how the younger had pretty teeth, too. He squirms a bit in his seat before Hyunjin begins talking again.

“I thought I was bi for a long time,” he hides his hands in his sleeves, “because I used to crush on everyone who I thought was pretty? I even had a couple of girlfriends in Middle School, but we never went past holding hands, though. So like...” exhale. 

Changbin reaches over and pries one of the hands Hyunjin has clasped around his cane open and holds onto it, lacing their fingers together. “Hey,” he starts, as soothingly as he manages to. “Just because I told you my story, you don’t have to force yourself to tell yours. I’ll listen to you whenever you’re ready.” Hyunjin raises his head, and even though he knows he can’t really see him, Changbin somehow feels like he’s really looking at him.

“I know,” Hyunjin squeezes his hand back, “but I want to.”

“Okay,” he whispers.

“So, uh… like, it took me losing my sight to realize I wasn’t into girls.” Hyunjin opens and closes his fingers. “It needed to get so bad not even the thick glasses I used to wear worked anymore for me to _see_ that girls did nothing to me,” he chuckles in the end.

Changbin stays quiet for a moment, rubbing his thumb against the back of Hyunjin’s hand. “Thank you for telling me this,” he says quietly.

“This isn’t a favor, so why are you thanking me?” Hyunjin scoffs.

“I know, but you went out of your way to tell me this, so this is me appreciating you for that."

"Oh,” Hyunjin casts his eyes down. “So I can do that too, huh?”

There’s a beat of silence, Hyunjin seems to be digesting what happened and Changbin stays quiet for once. The younger appears to be the kind to get easily overwhelmed when treated with kindness and then deflects those feelings with jokes. That was the impression Changbin had of him when they first met and that’s why he doesn’t think too much whenever Hyunjin openly flirts with him, even though it makes his heart do cartwheels. It’s nothing too serious.

The moment passes and Hyunjin gets back to his usual smile. He shakes their joint hands and lightly squeezes Changbin’s hand. 

“Shit, this is not why I came here,” he says. “I came here to listen to one of your songs, and hang out. Show me a song, hyung! You promised me!”

“I haven’t promised shit,” Changbin starts saying, but when Hyunjin pouts at him, his resolution crumbles instantly. “Ugh, I don’t think we have anything that’s properly finished and it's worth showing to you, though,” Changbin swivels his chair around, untangling his hand from Hyunjin’s. The mouse feels too cold and hard against his palm.

He opens the file he was working earlier and tells Hyunjin his latest song is probably one of the best ones he currently has, but it still needs some tweaking.

“What is it called?” Hyunjin asks and Changbin stops moving. He should’ve calculated better, maybe he still has time to choose another song, but his silence is apparently really telling to Hyunjin. “Hyung, does it have an embarrassing title?”

“...No.” Yes.

“No?”

“Maybe.”

“Then what is it?” Hyunjin chuckles and Changbin considers starting reading one of those pretentious poetry books to help him come up with better song titles.

“...Matryoshka.”

“Matryoshka.” Hyunjin asks without using the right intonation and Changbin just sighs, resigned that he’ll never stop finding new ways to embarrass himself in front of his crush. “Like the place you work at? Is it about people who order weird coffee?” He teases, making Changbin smirk.

“You’re about to find out really soon,” Chanbin says as he hits play.

Changbin manages to stay silent during the whole song, without commenting about changes that had to be done to it. A beat that sounded out of place, a verse that should start a tad later. It was partially because Hyunjin wouldn’t understand any of the technicalities of the production process, but mostly because he really enjoyed seeing how the younger seemed floored by his creation. By the end of it, though, he has a sneezing fit that goes for so long, Hyunjin twists his eyebrows in concern.

Hyunjin asks if he needs any medicine, which in Changbin lingo is almost a proposal. They decide to go for dinner, maybe some hotpot will help him heal faster.

Changbin walks Hyunjin home a second time, the younger tightly clung to his side, which is not practical for guiding a blind person, but it’s good to avoid the chilly wind that comes with early Fall. Changbin can’t really tell if it’s as cold as Hyunjin says. His insides are all warm, maybe it was the soup, maybe it was something else.

* * *

**You (9:31PM):** HAN JISUNG

 **sungie 🐿️ (9:31PM):** yo

 **You (9:32PM):** don’t you fuckin yo me you asshole  
**You (9:32PM):** why the fuck did you show wow to hyunjin???????

 **sungie 🐿️ (9:32PM):** ah, that

 **You (9:32PM):** so?

 **sungie 🐿️ (9:32PM):** you know, hyung, there are some days you wake up and say  
**sungie 🐿️ (9:33PM):** “today i will cause trouble on purpose”  
**sungie 🐿️ (9:33PM):** and i think mine was because i went down the stairs the other day to grab some snacks from the vending machine  
**sungie 🐿️ (9:33PM):** and saw hyunjin touching your face and it was the grossest thing i’ve ever seen in my life  
**sungie 🐿️ (9:33PM):** remind me to decline ur wedding invitation  
**sungie 🐿️ (9:34PM):** i can’t bear to see you that besotted again and i think you can’t throw up in the house of god

 **You (9:34PM):** like i have any chance now that you showed him the worst thing done by humankind

 **sungie 🐿️ (9:34PM):** im pretty sure ur missing some genocides and war crimes there hyung

 **You (9:34PM):** and you even dragged yourself and chan-hyung into this?  
**You (9:34PM):** tho i think nothing would shake anyone’s opinion on chan-hyung  
**You (9:35PM):** he could murder me and i’d still think he’s doing me a favor  
**You (9:35PM):** which he would, if it was right now  
**You (9:35PM):** jisung, you killed the little dignity we had in front of hyunjin

 **sungie 🐿️ (9:36PM):** hyung  
**sungie 🐿️ (9:36PM):** my bro  
**sungie 🐿️ (9:36PM):** my homie  
**sungie 🐿️ (9:36PM):** my love  
**sungie 🐿️ (9:36PM):** you’re already wrong for assuming i have any dignity in me  
**sungie 🐿️ (9:36PM):** or that hyunjin has any regard or respect when it comes to his opinion of me  
**sungie 🐿️ (9:36PM):** but i appreciate that  
**sungie 🐿️ (9:36PM):** you always assume the best of people and that’s why i love you

 **You (9:37PM):** ugh don’t be nice to me now

 **sungie 🐿️ (9:37PM):** don’t worry hyung  
**sungie 🐿️ (9:37PM):** i don’t think he likes you any less now  
**sungie 🐿️ (9:37PM):** but i do think you’ll never be able to live that off  
**sungie 🐿️ (9:37PM):** sorry dude :/

 **You (9:38PM):** you’re not sorry at all, you dingdong  
**You (9:38PM):** but it’s fine, i can take some teasing  
**You (9:38PM):** and i already thought i had no dignity  
**You (9:39PM):** so losing a shred i had no idea i even had was a nice surprise, i guess

 **sungie 🐿️ (9:39PM):** yeah, yeah, yeah  
**sungie 🐿️ (9:39PM):** love is beautiful  
**sungie 🐿️ (9:39PM):** and yours is literally blind  
**sungie 🐿️ (9:39PM):** so i better be ur best man at ur wedding

 **You (9:40PM):** bold of you to assume you’re even gonna be invited

* * *

It takes Hyunjin a couple of days to fully process what happened inside Changbin’s studio. In a few hours he’s already over the part where he told about his sexuality crisis to Changbin, but the song he listened to still lingers in his mind.

Changbin’s voice when rapping sounds a lot different from when he talks normally. It’s a lot more aggressive and raspy and harsh, just like the way he talked to Minjoo at the coffee shop, but it makes Hyunjin’s heart stutter in another way. The song was a polite declaration of war against the world, and its tone is very different from the way the older is in his everyday life. The way Changbin talks is much softer and he’s not embarrassed to do _aegyo_ from time to time. Hyunjin likes it, that gap between the boy who treats him kindly, expecting nothing in return and gets flustered with the minimal amount of teasing and the man who challenges the world to wait and see what he has to offer through his lyrics.

Hyunjin has known for some time now that his crush on Changbin is not the temporary kind that goes away with closeness and more time spent together. It grows stronger each time they meet and with each kind word Changbin tells him.

They act like they’re on borrowed time because Hyunjin set an imaginary deadline for things to either change or get to an end. Rumor was that the building renovation would take a few more weeks, but he wasn’t sure if he was ready to take the leap.

* * *

  
  


“Is it true that the renovations are over?” Changbin asks him as soon as they meet at the entrance. “Minho-hyung mentioned something like that last night.”

“Ah, yeah,” Hyunjin tries to answer as casually as possible. “I kinda forgot about it,” he lies. He has been doing a mental countdown for weeks.

The rooms they’re currently using for dance classes aren’t ideal, the flooring is bumpy, the light bulbs flicker all the time and the music echoes on the walls, not to mention the old elevator that makes Hyunjin feel like he’s in a horror movie every time he rides it, but he has learned to appreciate all those things, or rather, ignore those inconveniences just to savour a few minutes of Changbin’s presence.

“Any last words?” Changbin says jokingly, when they reach room 401B.

Words get caught in his throat. He can’t find his voice, he can’t find the courage. Three words that he throws around so easily without much thought suddenly feel too heavy on his tongue.

“I’ll miss seeing your ugly face,” he says instead, trying to commit Changbin’s squeaky laugh to memory.

* * *

  
  


The newly-renovated dance rooms are great. They had completely redone the flooring, now his feet glide more easily and he likes the squeaky sound it emits when his shoe soles drag against it. The lights are brighter and the new sound system is a lot clearer than the older ones. The walls also seem to be properly soundproofed, as he can no longer hear what the people in the other rooms are dancing to.

The other dancers tell him the new mirrors are great, too. They’re bigger and don’t have stains where the silver has oxidized. Hyunjin couldn’t care less about it.

He’s still not used to the renovated building. He has to train his muscle memory all over again to take him to the right places, but more than anything, he has to get used to not meeting Changbin almost everyday. 

When he stops to think about it, it shouldn’t be such a big deal. They only met for five, ten minutes if they got caught up in their conversation and stalled a bit to get to Hyunjin’s practice room. It was only a minimal fraction of his day, but he always looked forward to them the most.

He knows why it feels like this. He knows it’s no longer the usual “Hyunjin crushes on whomever is nice to him”. He likes Changbin, and probably has had feelings for him since early on, but he’s not the one to cross that bridge, rock that boat. It’s not like he’s satisfied with things as they are. He has imagined a million different scenarios for them, cute date ideas, the guide dog he’d get once they start living together.

But he has also imagined scenarios where things go bad and they are the ones that prevent him from taking the first step, because Changbin is kind to everyone. Changbin crushes on every pretty boy he meets _and then gets over it_ , so what if he has already gotten over his initial crush on Hyunjin? Jisung swears the older is ready to marry him on the spot, but Hyunjin wonders and wonders, and leaves the taking action part for later, for when he feels braver, maybe.

He has more pressing issues to worry about now. Finals for one, and then the dance competition. He’s saving his courage to ask Minho if he can choreograph their team’s dance, and if he has any luck and a bit of courage left, then he wants to ask Changbin, Jisung and Chan to compose a song.

And then, maybe after that… If they win, then maybe… Maybe.

He has been practicing on his own a lot since the renovation has ended because he wants to have at least something to show Minho when he asks to be their choreographer. Dancing without a set song is hard, but his imagination makes up for it.

It’s not time for dance practice yet, he’s using the room on his own and decides to lie on the ground to rest a little while he waits for the other people to arrive. His phone dings with a new message and by the time Felix, the first one to arrive for practice that day, opens the door, he has a wide grin on his face. VoiceOver’s robotic voice doesn’t compare to the real thing, but he listens to it over and over again before sending a reply.

 **binni-hyungie 💓💖💗 (3:27PM):** minho-hyung will be going home for the weekend, so like, do you wanna come to my place and watch something?

* * *

Changbin sighs for the nth time that day, earning a kick on the shin from Jisung. He yelps and looks at the younger, offended.

“Call him,” Jisung says, not looking away from his notebook. 

From the reflection on the computer screen, he sees that Chan is silently paying attention to them.

“Ugh, no,” he whines, scribbling over his notes.

Jisung sighs and throws his pen on the table, letting it bounce and fall on the floor. “Seriously, hyung, if you don’t do it, then I’ll do it! I can’t stand any more lyrics about pretty lips and silky hair or whatever cheesy shit you’ve been writing lately.”

“You have no moral to call me out on that,” Changbin counters, “the things you wrote about Minho-hyung when you two first met were even worse!”

“Yeah, but I actually used them to ask him out!”

“And I can’t believe it worked,” he shudders just at the memory of Jisung “serenading” Minho with a badly written rap.

“Neither do I!” Jisung readjusts his beanie, “but how hard it is to message Hyunjin saying ‘Yo, Jinnie, do you wanna, I don’t know, hang out and maybe watch one of your shitty dramas? And while we’re at it, what are your thoughts on a destination wedding because I think it’d be pretty cool if we got hitched in the Bahamas’”, he says, doing a bad imitation of Changbin’s voice when he raps.

“It’s not that easy!” Changbin tries to defend himself.

“Of course it is!”

“Guys,” Chan swivels his chair around with a sigh. Changbin is not sure if the tired look in his face comes from his usual combination of overworking and lack of sleep or if it’s because he’s tired of hearing Changbin and Jisung arguing about the same thing over and over again these last few days. “Can we not?”

“Then tell Jisung to hop off my case!” Changbin half yells.

“Please tell Binnie-hyung to stop being a coward!” Jisung counters.

“Okay,” Chan rubs his face and then runs his hand through his bleached hair. “Let’s talk about it once and for all,” his tone doesn’t leave space for discussion, even though discussing his love life instead of working isn’t something Changbin had in mind when he woke up that morning. “Binnie, is there a reason why you don’t ask Hyunjin out? I mean, we all know you like him and from what I hear, I’m pretty sure he at least has positive feelings about you.”

Changbin scratches the back of his head and then looks up to the ceiling until the brightness of the lamp makes him see black spots. He then closes his eyes and thinks before giving Chan an answer.

He knows the kind of affection Hyunjin directs him is different from how the younger treats his other friends, and although he’s grown immune to all the teasing and touching, that knowledge still sways him to the core. He has noticed the way Hyunjin says “Binnie-hyung” rings differently in his ears. It’s soft, but it also packs something he can’t quite tell. It comes spring loaded like a pinball ball, it bounces inside of him and right when he thinks it’s slowing down, it hits a new target.

“It’s not fear of rejection, not really,” he finally says. “But I don’t know if he wants to take this to another level, and I don’t if _I_ want that, to be honest.” He looks back down and Chan has a raised eyebrow. Jisung is ready to say something, but the older beats him to it.

“What do you mean by that?” He asks carefully.

“Like, it’s just…” Changbin rubs his chin, gathers his thoughts and starts again. “Like, Hyunjin is obviously not the type to make the first move, this much I already know by now.” Pause. “And I don’t mind being just friends with him because I’m someone he can rely on, and I don’t want him cutting off contact or feeling awkward asking me a favor,” he finishes talking and slumps back on the chair. It sounded more solid in his head, but now that he’s said it out loud, it sounds rather silly and a bit cowardly.

“So you rather die of blue balls?” Jisung asks.

Changbin sighs, tired. Arguing with him at this point is useless, Jisung won’t stop bugging him unless he proposes to Hyunjin with a huge flash mob that would be useless because the object of his affection can’t see.

Chan rolls over in his chair and gives Changbin a light squeeze on the shoulder and a sympathetic smile. “But friends hang out too, and you obviously miss seeing him regularly.”

And with that, Chan goes back to the computer, bringing the conversation to an end. Jisung gives him a last look and then turns his attention back to his notebook. Changbin feels the weight of his phone in his pocket and yeah, Chan is right, he should text Hyunjin.

Practice and theory are two completely different things when you’re a coward, Changbin knows that very well. He kept postponing sending a message to Hyunjin, setting small goals before sitting down and actually doing it. First, it was getting home, then, doing the dishes, after that was homework, and then, it was the next day. He finally decides to send the text at a time when he knows Hyunjin would be at dance practice, so he wouldn’t be able to answer right away.

 **You (3:27PM):** minho-hyung will be going home for the weekend, so like, do you wanna come to my place and watch something?

He probably spent way too much time mulling over those words, but that was, in fact, the ideal date. It was the last free weekend they’d have before midterms and Minho would go back home to “recharge his batteries” (translation: spend some time with his cats). Nevermind that, as per usual, he only noticed the innuendo in his carefully crafted message when Hyunjin replied to him hours later.

 **jinnie 🦙💗 (7:42PM):** Netflix and chill before even buying me dinner first?

 **You (7:43PM):** FUCK  
**You (7:43PM):** that wasn’t my intention I SWEAR

 **jinnie 🦙💗 (7:44PM):** I know, hyung  
**jinnie 🦙💗 (7:44PM):** I was just teasing you

 **You (7:44PM):** of course you were

 **jinnie 🦙💗 (7:45PM):** I am free though!  
**jinnie 🦙💗 (7:46PM):** I’d love to hang out with you 😊

 **You (7:46PM):** it’s settled then

 **jinnie 🦙💗 (7:47PM):** :)

Changbin puts his phone away and sighs, not realizing he’s smiling like a big doof. He looks around the state of his apartment. It’s not that bad, him and Minho are fairly organized people, but he decides it’s time for a mid-Fall cleanup. A big one, which has nothing to do with Hyunjin’s visit, it’s just nice to clean from time to time and leave the whole house smelling nice.

He sets out for the supermarket in order to stock up on snacks and buy new cleaning supplies. When he gets back, he tries to ignore the look on Minho’s face when he sees what he brought home.

* * *

Hyunjin stands in front of his miniscule college dorm room closet and goes over his clothes once again. He has been doing it for the last hour and a half, feeling the fabrics and textures under his fingertips and trying to come up with an outfit that says “effortlessly well-dressed, but also very comfortable”. Seungmin and Jisung are there, doing a group project and he asks their opinion from time to time.

“How about this one?” He says, slipping into a distressed denim jacket that has big buttons.

“I think it’s fine,” Jisung says.

"I wouldn't trust Jisung's fashion advice," Seungmin cuts him and Hyunjin hears his chair creaking under his weight, while Jisung protests. "I think the jacket is a bit too much, since you're not going out. How about that knit sweater you have? I think it’s comfy and cute enough.”

Hyunjin takes off the jacket and puts it back in the rack, along with the other jackets. He probably has proved almost every piece of clothing he owns, almost re-enacting the classic rom-com scene where the character throws everything from their closet onto the bed or floor, but he instead returns them to their right place. It's a fun cliché, but he can't be messy when he has Seungmin as a roommate, and a stray shirt on the floor could mean a tripping hazard for him later on.

"Which one?" He asks, going through his hoodies and then to his sweaters.

"The one with thick wool and a V-neck."

Hyunjin finds it and puts it on, "how about it?" He asks, extending his arms downwards.

"Yeah, it's perfect," Seungmin gives his approval. 

Hyunjin closes the closet door and sits on his bed, waiting until it's time to meet Changbin in the lobby, which is still thirty minutes away.

"I have a question," Jisung says after a long beat of silence, which is never a good sign when it comes to Jisung.

"Oh, God," Hyunjin and Seungmin say at the same time.

“No, no, hear me out,” he continues, “I have been thinking about it for a while, but Jin, my man, why do you even bother wearing clothes when you’re blind?”

It takes a solid minute for Hyunjin to fully process what he has just heard. His brain plays it over and over again, changing the word sequences so it makes more sense to him, but it fails the task. It’s then that he hears a slap and Jisung yelling in pain. Hyunjin mentally thanks Seungmin.

“Because I still live in a society?” 

“Yeah, but you don’t have to see it, so why bother?”

Hyunjin sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. He wishes time would pass faster so Changbin could come pick him up sooner.

“Oh my God, what the fuck is wrong with you, Han Jisung?” Seungmin says.

Jisung doesn’t drop the subject for what sounds like an eternity. He goes over his points multiple times and some of them included saying Changbin would appreciate more if Hyunjin turned up naked to their hang out and if the two of them were roommates, Jisung would also be always naked around him, in solidarity.

Relief washes over him when his phone starts ringing to the tune he set for Changbin. As soon as he picks up the call, Jisung asks if it’s Changbin and then proceeds to start singing “It’s Getting Hot In Here” at the top of his lungs. Hyunjin hurries to get out of the room.

“Hi,” he says, a bit breathless even though he only took five steps.

 _“Was that Jisung?”_ Changbin asks from the other side, his voice coated in amusement.

“Unfortunately, yes,” he sighs, “him and Seungmin are doing a group project in our room.”

 _“Oh, I see,”_ Changbin’s voice changes tone, like he’s tip-toeing around something.

“What is it, hyung? Why are you calling? Is there something wrong?” Hyunjin’s mind goes thousand miles per hour, already preparing himself for the possibility of the older cancelling their plans and having to go back to his room.

 _“No, no, there’s nothing, it’s just that I, uh,”_ he clears his throat, _“I’m here? In the lobby?”_

“Oh.”

 _“I miscalculated the time and got here way earlier than I thought?”_ Nervous laugh, _“I know I’m really early, so if you’re not ready, you can take your time, don’t mind me, I can wait down here.”_

Hyunjin feels his mouth curving up to a smile and a pull at his heart strings. “No, I’m ready! I, uh, I also miscalculated things,” he says softly.

_“Oh, okay.”_

“I’m just gonna-- I’m just gonna grab my stuff and I’ll meet you down there, all right?”

_“Right.”_

“Right.”

 _“Okay, see you soon,”_ Changbin says, which makes Hyunjin chuckle. _“Fuck, sorry!”_

Whatever conversation Seungmin and Jisung were having is cut as soon and Hyunjin opens the door. He searches for his cane and the tote bag he had prepared the night before.

“What did hyung say?” Seungmin asks carefully. “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah,” Hyunjin says, checking if he had everything he needed in his bag. “He just called me to say he’s already here.”

There’s a short moment of silence and Hyunjin knows his friends are exchanging looks between them. 

“Changbin-hyung? Early?” Jisung asks. “He’s _always_ late for _everything_!”

“Anyway, I’m going out,” Hyunjin says, unfolding his cane, already leaving the room.

“Have fun!” Seungmin calls.

Jisung yelling “Use protection!” is the last thing he hears before shutting the door behind him.

Changbin insists they ride a cab to his place, even though Hyunjin doesn’t mind walking, and then refuses to split the fare, saying he had just gotten his paycheck.

The first thing he notices about Changbin and Minho’s apartment is the smell of artificial lavender that welcomes him as soon as Changbin opens the door.

“Please don’t mind the mess,” the elder says and Hyunjin at this point doesn’t need to say anything before Changbin realizes his own mistake. “Fuck, sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Hyunjin says, removing his shoes on the entryway.

It amuses him that Changbin still forgets that he can’t see, even though they’ve known each other for months. He never thinks it’s annoying because he knows it came from a place of awkwardness at first and now it turned into ordinary comfort. Changbin talks to him like he talks to everyone else, he stomped all the way to Hyunjin, never once thinking of walking on eggshells.

Changbin takes him to the couch and shows him there’s a side table beside it, where he can leave his cane. The older lists an endless variety of snacks he apparently bought just for him and Hyunjin chooses Pringles and a Coke. When Changbin finally sits beside him, after fussing around the living room for what feels like an eternity, Hyunjin leans on his shoulder as soon as the cushions dip under his weight.

They decide to watch Park Jinyoung’s latest drama after Hyunjin mentions he hadn’t seen it yet. Hyunjin is used to having movie nights with his friends where he just listens to the dialogues and asks what’s happening when there are long stretches of silence during it. Even though he used to love watching dramas and movies before and even religiously turn on the TV every week when a new episode aired, nowadays he does it more for the company, to be around people he likes. So, when Changbin starts narrating the scenes like a clumsy audio description narrator, even going as far as pausing it when he’s not able to describe the scene fast enough, he feels something funny in the pit of his stomach.

“Why are you doing that, hyung?" Hyunjin asks, in the middle of the first episode. "You don't need to, I'm fine with only listening to the dialogue." “ _Please don't do that”_ is what he wants to say.

“Yeah, but then you won’t be able to enjoy it as much and this whole thing will be pointless.” _Oh._ “Unless you wanna do something else? I’m fine either way.”

Hyunjin tries to swallow the lump in his throat and quiet down the funny feeling in his chest without being too obvious. He snuggles even more against Changbin, lowering from his shoulder to his torso and putting the older’s arm over his shoulders.

“No, it’s fine, thank you,” he says, hugging a pillow tightly against his chest. “How did you know about it though?” He’s reminded of the first time he, Felix, Jisung and Seungmin all cramped up in Felix and Jisung’s shared dorm room to watch a movie together and Jisung asked if they should turn on the subtitles for Hyunjin, his own clumsy way of being mindful of his friend.

“I, uh… have been reading a lot of blogs recently? And some videos too,” Changbin sounds embarrassed and Hyunjin hears him scratching his head. “I didn’t want to make any blunders that could end up hurting you without me noticing.”

The lump in Hyunjin’s throat gets even bigger and he has to still himself. _“Please,”_ he begs inside his own head, _“don’t make me fall even harder for you.”_

Hyunjin then does something that he’s become quite good at in the last few months whenever he feels overwhelmed: he suddenly changes the subject.

“Oh!” He exclaims, “I have something to tell you!” Changbin hums, prompting him to continue. “I was chosen to be our team’s choreographer for the end of the year competition!”

Changjin makes a noise at the back of his throat, caught by surprise and it takes a beat for him to finally formulate a sentence. “That’s amazing, Hyunjin!” He gives the younger a small squeeze on the shoulder, “I’m really happy for you!”

Hyunjin allows himself to smile and says a small “thank you”. 

He tries to think of something else to say, but his thoughts are cut short when a high-pitched scream comes from the TV, startling the two of them. They had forgotten about the show they were watching for a moment, but the loud noise brought them back to it.

“Fuck,” Changbin hisses. 

Hyunjin grabs his shirt, desperate to know what is happening because he can only hear the sound of water. “What’s happening? Did something bad happen?” He asks.

Changbin doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, he makes choking noises from the back of his throat, taking a good minute to finally be able to form a coherent sentence. “Park Jinyoung was taking a shower and the girl walked in on him, that’s why she screamed,” his voice is strangled, like it’s struggling to come out.

“Wait, what?” Hyunjin loosens the hold he had on Changbin's shirt. “Is he shirtless?”

“That’s how people usually shower, Hyunjin, yes.”

“Ok, hyung, tell me, does he have a six pack?” He takes Changbin’s strained whine as a yes. “On a scale of one to ten, how good is it?”

“What-- What exactly is that scale?!”

Hyunjins sits up just a bit, still leaning against Changbin’s side. He reaches out and pats the older’s stomach, trying to feel his ab muscles, and then pokes it, testing how rigid they are, making Changbin squeal and laugh nervously because he feels ticklish. 

“You’re at least a 7.5, hyung,” he declares in a solemn voice. “But I can’t tell for sure over your clothes.”

“I-I guess a seven, then?” 

“Damn,” Hyunjin says, settling himself on Changbin’s pecs once again. The older’s heart is beating in a rhythm more erratic than an amateur marching band, which makes Hyunjin smile to himself, satisfied. “Just for reference, Kang Dongho’s Men’s Health cover from four years ago is a nine.”

“Didn’t know you liked him.”

“Yeah, I really like his singing and back when my vision was still 20/20, he was like, my ideal man,” sigh, “I think I still have his issue back at home.”

Changbin had paused the episode to go back to the scene they were watching before they stopped paying attention to it, which made his silence even more prominent.

“What’s wrong, hyung?” Hyunjin asks, poking at Changbin’s side.

Changbin’s squirms under him before answering. “It’s just that you never really talk about how your life was before, I was just processing it.”

Oh.

“Ah, yeah, I don’t normally talk about it, but you never asked either,” Hyunjin says in a small voice.

“I just don’t want you telling me something that makes you uncomfortable,” Changbin says, like it’s obvious.

_Oh._

Hyunjin stops for a second and tries to assess what kind of feelings those memories stir in him. He still remembers vividly sitting down at the doctor’s office and receiving the news that his retinas were slowly dying after going through a series of exams. It still makes him feel something heavy and cold in the pit of his stomach and he still can remember the sting in his eyes after crying for days, but everything is dulled down now. He hasn’t really told the whole story to any of his other friends and not thinking about it has helped a lot, he thinks. The pain is still there, and maybe it'll never go away, but it's less sharp, so he spills everything onto Changbin.

He starts by telling him how he started bumping into people and things all the time and how he initially brushed it off as clumsiness, his body still adapting to his rapidly growing limbs during puberty. Things began to get worse when he started to actually injure himself while walking on the street and the lessons written on the blackboard started looking too blurry for him to be able to read. 

At some point, Changbin starts patting his hair and Hyunjin leans into it, allowing himself to be comforted. Aside from the buzzing coming from the home appliances, the whole apartment is quiet, Hyunjin’s voice being the only thing that fills the silence.

When Hyunjin gets to the part of his story about the lessons he had to take in order to adapt to his new life, he gets choked up. Changbin squeezes his shoulder and rubs his back soothingly.

“You don’t have to force yourself,” he says in a low voice and Hyunjin feels the vibration of his voice reverberate through his body rather than hearing him.

Hyunjin shakes his head, only extending his right hand towards Changbin, who immediately gets the message and intertwines their fingers together. Since that first serious talk they had in the studio, it has become their thing, holding hands when the subject gets serious. Hyunjin is the kind who easily gets overwhelmed and Changbin’s gesture is his way of showing he’s there for him.

He tells the rest, the difficulty of going to high school, trying to have a normal life knowing his eyes were slowly dying.

“I used to be a very visual person,” he says with a scoff. “It’s kinda ironic, when you stop to think about it.” Changbin squeezes his hand and with his other one, he goes back to patting Hyunjin’s head. “I wanted to be an architect, like my dad. Or maybe an interior designer.” He doesn’t feel like crying, but his eyes sting anyway. “My dad and I used to draw blueprints for imaginary houses all the time when I was growing up."

"Thank you," Changbin says, giving him another squeeze. "You telling me this means a lot to me."

Hyunjin's breath hitches. He hasn't allowed himself to be this vulnerable in a long time and he feels like if he stops now, there are things he won't be able to say ever again, so he also spills his insecurities. _I think people only let me do whatever I want because they pity me. I think Minho-hyung let me, a freshman, choreograph this years’ entry because he still has next year to win the competition._

Changbin stays silent for a moment, he strokes Hyunjin's hair absent-mindedly, his fingertips lightly grazing against the younger's scalp, sending shivers down his spine.

"Yeah, that might be so," he finally says, making Hyunjin swallow audibly. "But I don't think it matters. If you're satisfied with the things you're doing right now and you're satisfied with it, then it's all good. Have more confidence. I think you shouldn't think too much on what other people think, because at the end of the day, it's your life."

He uses all of his strength not to do something stupid, like kiss Changbin right there. He tells his heart to calm down, even though it’s the only thing he can hear now. The feelings of love and adoration overcome him and it’s too much, almost unbearable, almost physically painful. 

It’s then that he reaches his decision. He might not have courage now, despite Changbin telling him to have a little more confidence, but if, no, when he wins the competition, then he’ll take the leap.

His only hope is that Changbin will be there to catch him.

* * *

Hyunjin likes dancing in the dark. Even when he still could see perfectly, he liked to practice with the lights turned off because it helped him create clear images in his head. Nowadays, he needs someone to spot him, correct his angles, make sure he’s going the right direction.

When he suggested the use of blindfolds, he joked, saying they all would know how it feels to be him, but even Hyunjin was apprehensive. Having all light sources blocked is scary, not only because it makes him completely disoriented, but it makes him scared of bumping into his teammates. 

Everything is mostly set. Chan, Changbin and Jisung finished composing the songs they’ll use for both the year-end showcase and the dance competition, Hyunjin has finished making the choreography with Minho’s help and all that’s left now is practice, practice, practice. 

Winning shouldn’t matter so much, but the prideful part in him wants the prize, to prove himself.

The art department of their university has a showcase every semester that serves for academic and grading purposes. It’s then that the students get graded in their final projects and it’s also the event where company scouts and headhunters show up to recruit people. A few weeks after the showcase, at the end of the school year, there’s a competition among the departments that is usually taken way more seriously by the students because the prize is a voucher for an all-you-can-eat barbecue place, and it’s a well-known fact that university students will probably do anything for free food.

It is said that during the first meeting the team had to discuss it, Felix’s eyes rolled backwards at the mention of meat. 

Minho said it’s the first time they have a realistic chance at winning, since the monster duo who dominated it the previous years had graduated right before Hyunjin entered. Changbin wants to win because it’s Chan’s last year, Felix wants the barbecue voucher and Hyunjin? 

Hyunjin wants to dance in the dark and then take a leap of faith.

* * *

Changbin is so nervous it almost looks like he’s the one about to go on stage. 

He walks as fast as he can towards the auditorium, trying not to freeze his butt off in the meantime, but maybe the cold will help him calm his nerves down. At this point, there’s nothing he can do. He spent hours and hours listening to Hyunjin’s ideas and then even more hours perfecting the song with Chan and Jisung. He even called Hyunjin earlier to cheer him up and try to comfort him.

Chan and Jisung are already seated when he enters the room and they both have flower bouquets in hand. Changbin suddenly feels inadequate for coming empty-handed when he knows that’s the common etiquette in this case. The voice in his head tries to reason that his friends came to watch their boyfriends perform and Changbin… Changbin isn’t dating Hyunjin.

  
  


* * *

Hyunjin can’t stay still and Yeji, his teammate who got stuck doing his makeup tells him that she’ll end up poking his eye if he doesn’t calm down.

It’s easier said than done. He feels like he has a whole beehive buzzing inside his chest and enough energy stored in his body that he could light up an entire house on his own.

“I can see the hyungs and Jisung in the audience,” Felix says. “Jisung has a bouquet that’s bigger than him,” he laughs.

Their team will be the second to last to go on stage for the group category and he just hopes his resolve won’t dissipate until then.

* * *

When the lights turn off and the groups start performing, Changbin is able to turn off his nervousness a little bit. He doesn’t know much about dance, but he knows his fair share about music production, so he can tell that at least in that category, their team has a chance at winning.

It’s completely different from last year, when Chan convinced him to submit an entry just to earn experience because there was no way they could win. Hyunjin has been completely secretive about their choreography, but Changbin trusts him, he trusts Minho’s judgement, and above all, he trusts his own abilities as a musician.

Changbin is already tired of sitting down when Hyunjin’s team enters the stage. The younger is not holding his cane, so it’s Felix who puts him in position, gently guiding him by the arm. Some people in the audience seem to get what’s going on, so Changbin hears a few gasps here and there.

He sits on the edge of his seat as soon the music starts. He knows it by heart, being the one who created those beats, but his songs acquire a new color when it’s being performed, and Changbin thinks that’s a feeling he’ll never be able to forget.

The formations and imagery the choreography assumes tells Changbin that it was truly a product of Hyunjin’s mind, but he still can’t help but let his mouth hang open during the performance. Hyunjin’s stage persona is powerful and captivating, completely different from the giggly boy he usually is.

There’s a moment in the song where it turns silent and Changbin sees the team reaching for their pockets. They take off a black strip of cloth and wrap it around their eyes. Changbin and the rest of the audience stop breathing for a moment. 

What comes next is a blur of intricate movements that somehow are in sync with his heartbeats. When the performance comes to an end with the dancers removing their blindfolds in a swift motion, the audience forgets for a second that they are supposed to clap.

* * *

Hyunjin hears the murmurs coming from the audience when he enters the stage and Felix guides him to his position. His brain is too wired to make up the words being said, so he tries his best to tune them out.

As soon as the music starts, everything else is drowned and Hyunjin focuses on counting the beats. 

His hands are trembling when he reaches for his pocket and takes out the blindfold. Not being able to locate the stage lights is terrifying and more importantly, he doesn’t want to ruin their performance by accidentally bumping into someone. It’s not supposed to happen, though. Not when they’ve practiced so much they’re able to move like a single unit, not when Hyunjin has memorized the sound of everyone’s steps and their breathing patterns.

It ends all too soon, before he realizes, he’s removing the blindfold and now the lights are too bright. There’s no immediate reaction from the audience, which makes Hyunjin’s heart sink to the ground. He turns towards them to bow down anyway, when the roar of applause starts and he doesn’t know how to react.

“Dude, it’s a standing ovation!” Felix yells in his ear, hugging him so tightly he can barely breathe.

“We did it, Hyunjin-ah,” Minho ruffles his hair and he’s conducted backstage.

He has to wait for another hour until the results are announced because there’s still the solo portion of the competition. By the way everyone’s talking, they’re sure of their victory, but the reason for Hyunjin’s stomach being tied in a nervous knot is completely different.

* * *

Changbin regrets not buying flowers. Maybe a bouquet is too much, but he wants to run to the grocery store and buy one of those single roses wrapped in cellophane. He feels bad sitting empty-handed when all the dancers are brought to the stage for the final results. 

Hyunjin’s skin is no longer glistening with sweat, but his bangs are still sticking to his forehead. He has his cane with him this time and his other hand is holding onto Felix’s shoulder. 

As Seungkwan, a third-year student from the vocal department who’s serving as the MC for the night does his banter to rile up the audience before announcing the winners, Changbin feels one of his hands being grabbed by Chan. He tried to play it cool for the last couple of months and even though he already has a job lined up for him at the recording studio where he’s been interning at, Changbin knows that winning this competition once before graduating means a lot to him, so he quietly squeezes the older’s hand back.

“And wow, just as we thought we had gotten rid of Soonyoung-hyung dominating all the competitions, I see that we have very strong new contenders to take his place,” the MC says, pointing to the dancers. “Very impressed! The blindfolds? Honey, you got me shooketh!”

Even from afar, Changbin can see Hyunjin blushing and he can’t stop himself from smiling.

“And the results are in, people,” Seungkwan says when a stagehand brings him two big envelopes. “Can we have a drumroll, please?” The entire audience starts hitting their feet against the ground. “So… for the group category, the winner is…” he makes an exaggerated pause and Chan almost crushes Changbin’s hand. “Team Cat’s Cradle, captained by Lee Minho! Congratulations! And the people who composed the original song they used in the performance also get the prize, so congratulations to Bang Chan, Seo Changbin and Han Jisung!”

Changbin is squashed by a Chan-Jisung sandwich and he himself is so happy he doesn’t know the proper way to react. He looks down to the stage, where Hyunjin is equally having his soul squeezed out of his body. For a second, even though he knows it’s impossible, he feels like their eyes meet, and his heart is suddenly too full.

* * *

Hyunjin can’t even hear the other winner being announced over the loudness of his own team, or maybe it’s his heart that’s beating loudly in his ears. He lifts up his head, looking towards the audience. He feels Changbin is there, looking at him and that, somehow, makes all his fears disappear.

The entrance hall is a mess, there are too many people and they’re all talking too loudly for him. Minho seems to notice his discomfort and brings him back to the auditorium, where it’s almost empty, save for a few people who stayed behind and the production team who is starting to do the clean up.

Chan comes first, giving him a tight hug and congratulates him for coming up with the choreo. Jisung is next, giving him a hard slap and immediately going away to celebrate with Minho.

Changbin’s presence is palpable, Hyunjin was able to tell the older was there, in the audience, even though he wasn’t able to take a peek from behind the curtains like his colleagues did. He emits a warm and assuring aura that makes Hyunjin feel safe.

“I should’ve bought flowers for you,” is the first thing Changbin says. “I feel awkward congratulating you empty-handed.” Hyunjin is sure he can hear him blushing. “I’ll run to the grocery store and buy you a flower!”

“Hyung, don’t!” Hyunjin says, extending his hand instinctively. He doesn’t care about flowers, or even the prize, for that matter, but he has a very limited amount of courage and he needs to get it out of his system right now. “I need to tell you something,” he finishes, almost out of breath.

“Yeah?” Changbin reaches out for his hand, intertwining their fingers. It’s a small gesture that turned into their thing. Changbin holds his hand to show that he’s there with Hyunjin.

And suddenly, like a storm that comes without warning, he realizes how silly he was being all along. There wasn’t a single moment since they’ve met that Changbin wasn’t with him. Taking the leap would never be scary because Changbin would hold his hand and then manage to catch him on the other side.

“Hyung,” deep breath, “Changbin-hyung,” he can barely hear his own voice over the violent beating of his heart. His hands are shaking and they’re all sweaty, which makes Changbin only squeeze it harder. Even without words, he can feel the older’s concern. He swallows the lump in his throat and pushes it down, down, down. “Hyung, I like you,” he finally says, as steady as he can.

* * *

His mind has short-circuited, everything is too much for his tiny brain and it overwhelms his system. The information being conveyed to him is not new, but the timing is. Changbin wasn’t expecting to hear it so soon, or ever, for that matter.

Hyunjin knits his eyebrows for his lack of response, so Changbin quickly comes up with his most eloquent answer. 

“Yeah?” Hyunjin deflates a bit, so he tries again, after clearing his throat. “I-- yeah, me too. I like you too, Hyunjin.”

It’s Hyunjin’s turn to have a delayed reaction. He blushes from his cheeks to the tip of his ears and turns his head down. They’re still holding hands and when Hyunjin tries to retract his, Changbin pulls him closer. 

“Hyunjin.” The younger lifts his head. “I have liked you for a long time now, and I think you’ve felt the same towards me,” Hyunjin nods, so he continues. “I never imagined you’d take the first step, but I’m really happy you did.”

“I was scared you didn’t like me back,” Hyunjin’s eyes are wet. “But I realized how dumb it was because you’re you and you’d never hurt me,” he says with a smile and a single tear rolling down his cheek.

“No, I wouldn’t.” Changbin wipes Hyunjin’s tear with his thumb.

“Hyung?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m gonna kiss you.”

“Okay,” Changbin laughs.

Hyunjin lets go of his hand and cane to cup Changbin’s face. His hands are still shaky and sweaty, but Changbin doesn’t care because he had never noticed how long Hyunjin’s eyelashes are. No, that’s a lie. He has, but when the younger leans in, it’s the first time he sees them up close and for a moment, he forgets all the confidence he had a minute ago.

The first contact is clumsy, they bump noses and don’t get the angle right. Hyunjin straightens his back and they both laugh, well aware of how silly it is. He leans in once again and this time, Changbin meets him in the middle. 

Hyunjin’s lips are as soft as he had imagined and he manages to smell nice even after having sweated so much. Changbin’s eyes are closed, half out of reflex and half out of fear that if he opens them, he’ll wake up from a dream. Hyunjin’s hands relax and he feels the dancer’s lips curve into a smile. Without noticing, his own hands are grabbing onto Hyunjin’s shoulders as he adjusts the angle of his head. His eyes flutter open for a second just to see that Hyunjin also has his eyes closed, and he can’t help but smile.

The moment is cut short when someone wolf-whistles at them and Changbin doesn’t need to look to know it was Jisung. They separate and he looks towards where the noise came from just to see all their friends peeking at them. Seungmin slaps Jisung on the back of his head and Chan urges the group outside.

“Sungie owes me twenty thousand won!” He hears Minho singing as he leaves the auditorium.

The mood is gone, thanks to his friends. He looks over to Hyunjin, who’s standing rather awkwardly, not sure of what to do with his hands. Changbin lowers himself and picks up Hyunjin’s cane and gives it back to him.

He grabs the younger’s free hand and hooks it in his own arm. Changbin nuzzles Hyunjin’s shoulder still feeling like he’s floating.

“What now?” He asks.

“Hmm,” Hyunjin tries to fake pensiveness, but his giddiness is way too clear. “I think you should ask me out, and then we can go have dinner with everyone else because now that the adrenaline is gone, I feel ravenous.”

They both laugh, and then Changbin pokes Hyunjin’s arm to get his attention.

“Hyunjin?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you wanna be my boyfriend?”

“Yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> the title comes from a poem called "Too Much Closeness is Blindness" by Ric Bastasa, i recommend taking a look at because it makes this fic sound 1094% more poetic than it really is
> 
> yes, these kids put more effort in a competition that's worth a meal voucher than final evaluations that can decide their future in the industry
> 
> i have tons of headcanons that didn't make into the final product, so............. ask away
> 
> OH! and thank you to oonseentia, who's already putting up with my 1239480 aus and wrote at least 20% of this luv ya bro <3
> 
> [I have a twitter](https://twitter.com/emmerits) and a [Curious Cat](https://curiouscat.me/emmerits)
> 
> EDIT: to the people who read this and enjoyed it, i had planned an epilogue a while ago, please let me know if you're interested


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